Doctoraatsverdediging
Veerle Provoost Pregnancy and the arrival of a newborn infant are associated
with hope and new beginning. In Western countries, fortunately, the birth
of a child mostly is a positive happening. However, in a small number
of cases it all turns out to be very different. The data presented in
this thesis were collected form a cohort of 298 life-born children who
died before their first birthday in Flanders. For each of these children
there is an individual story and each death was a tragedy for their family
and caregivers. For more than four years we studied these data, especially
focussing on decisions that were made prior to death. This thesis results
from the study of these data. With this study, I hope to contribute to
the knowledge about end-of-life decisions which can improve health care
even in these difficult moments. In that way, the tragic stories of these
children, who, in some cases, only lived very shortly, can contribute
to the improval of care at the end of life in newborns and infants.
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