A Scoping Review of Perinatal Palliative Care: Allowing Parents to Be Parents.

Objective: Perinatal palliative care (PPC) is an option for patients who discover that their infant has a life-limiting fetal condition, which decreases the burden of the condition using a multidisciplinary approach.

Study Design: This review discusses the landmark literature in the past two decades, which have seen significant growth and development in the concept of PPC.

Results: The literature describes the background, quality, and benefits of offering PPC, as well as the ethical principles that support its being offered in every discussion of fetal life-limiting diagnoses.

Conclusion: PPC shares a similar risk profile to other options after life-limiting diagnosis, including satisfaction with choice of continuation of pregnancy. The present clinical opinion closes by noting common barriers to establishing PPC programs and offers a response to overcome each one.

Key Points: · Perinatal palliative care serves patients who continue pregnancies with life-limiting fetal anomaly.. · Perinatal palliative care has a risk profile similar to other options such as termination.. · Health care providers can serve as champions to extend PPC to patients in their region..