Care during Pregnancy
Perinatal Support to Meet Your Family’s Unique Needs
Sonograms and prenatal tests are powerful medical tools to help expectant families plan for the future. But sometimes those tests reveal problems that may limit the baby’s life. Perinatal hospice is designed to help the family through the pregnancy and for whatever time the family will have together.
For families facing that uncertainty, Carousel offers support, comfort and education. The perinatal (before birth) program is designed to meet the unique needs of families whose babies will be born with limited life expectancies.
The program starts with a visit from the perinatal social worker to discuss the family’s wishes, needs and information about how to enroll in the program.
Services include:
- Assistance with creating a birthing plan to be shared with hospital staff:
- Your family’s decision on medical treatments for the baby
- Rituals (such as baptism) you may want at the time of birth
- List of people to be present at the birth
- Description of what labor and delivery staff should do when the baby is born (for example, “We want our baby to be wrapped in a blanket and handed to us, and then we want time alone with our baby.”) Support, information, encouragement and help creating ways to celebrate the baby’s birth and life
- Assistance with planning final arrangements and celebrations of the infant’s life
- Grief support for parents, siblings, grandparents and others affected by the baby’s life and death
Babies who go home with their parents will continue to receive services through Carousel:
- Regularly scheduled visits by our team
- Education on caring for babies at home
- Emotional and spiritual support for the entire family
- Respite care and support from trained volunteers
- Assistance with community resources
- Nurses on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer questions and make necessary home visits
- Grief support for the entire family
For More Information
Call Kansas City Hospice &.Palliative Care at 816-363-2600 and ask for Carousel.
“I will be forever grateful . . . for the support and compassion provided to our family by the caring staff and volunteers of the Carousel perinatal program. They were always there to ease our fears but, even more importantly, they shared in the celebration of our son’s life and helped us come to realize his very unique beauty and place in this world.”
– Mother of a perinatal patient
