Research Article Who Receives Home-Based Perinatal Palliative Care: Experience from Poland

Copyright © 2013 Aleksandra Korzeniewska-Eksterowicz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Context. The current literature suggests that perinatal palliative care (PPC) programs should be comprehensive, initiated early, and integrative. So far there have been very few publications on the subject of home-based PC of newborns and neonates. Most publications focus on hospital-based care, mainly in the neonatal intensive care units. Objective. To describe the neonates and infants who received home-based palliative care in Lodz Region between 2005 and 2011.Methods. A retrospective review ofmedical records. Results. 53 neonates and infants were admitted to a home hospice in Lodz Region between 2005 and 2011. In general, they are a growing group of patients referred to palliative care. Congenital diseases (41%) were the primary diagnoses; out of 53 patients 16 died, 20 were discharged home, and 17 stayed under hospice care until 2011.Themost common cause of death (56%) was cardiac insufficiency. Neurological symptoms (72%) and dysphagia (58%) were the most common clinical problems. The majorit