A new HSE booklet has been written to help pregnant women and their partners who receive a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality.
The aim of the booklet is to provide guidance to the individuals about their healthcare options, including termination of the pregnancy.
On Newstalk Breakfast, Professor Keelin O’Donoghue of the Pregnancy Loss Research Group at UCC said the booklet will not replace clinical care, but will supplement it.
“They don't replace our responsibility as health care professionals working in this area to spend time with people in these scenarios and to make sure they get information and support,” she explained.
“But booklets can certainly support that and this guide was created by the HSE's Women and Infants Program and the Pregnancy Loss Research Group, led by myself, with lots of input from legal and medical practitioners, researchers and, importantly, people with lived experience.”
Professor O’Donoghue continued that it is “quite a large booklet”, given the complexity of the topic.
“What this booklet mostly deals with is major fetal anomalies and those are ones that seriously affect baby's health development or long term well-being,” she said.
“The most serious of those, the baby mightn't be expected to survive during pregnancy or indeed after birth.
“These diagnoses are usually sudden, they're complex and they're profoundly distressing.
“And we know that people in those situations are expected to absorb an awful lot of clinical information, navigate the legal criteria, try and make decisions.
“Obviously, some people choose to continue pregnancy and some don't; then they have to manage grief around the ending of a pregnancy.”
Professor O’Donoghue added that any organisation or individual is welcome to use it as she feels it is a “valuable resource and needs to be used in the real world”.
“What it goes through is everything from the beginning of how these diagnoses are made, what happens after a diagnosis, all the different people involved, what the legal framework is, what care in Ireland might involve,” she said.
“We do talk about care pathways for travel outside of Ireland and we also talk about bereavement focused care and future pregnancy planning.”
Main image: A doctor holding a stethoscope. Picture by: Alamy.com.
