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As soon as a woman becomes pregnant she immediately bonds with her child, developing dreams of her child’s place in the family (Capitulo, 2005).  However, the child’s place in the family becomes more ambiguous when a family chooses to carry to term a baby with a lethal anomaly.  How will this baby “fit” into the plan?  How will this baby “fit” into the family if it dies before birth or if it lives for a few minutes, hours or days?  What can we as health care providers do to help the family make these difficult decisions?  How can we help to create lifelong memories from the few minutes, hours or days that a family will have with their baby?

Perinatal loss is a prevalent and potentially life-transforming event for bereaved parents and families.  More often than not, however, parents do not receive appropriate care (Lang, et. al, 2005).  The focus of health care professionals has turned from protective to supportive  when dealing with families who have a pregnancy loss (Capitulo, 2005)  This is evidenced by the support given to one family  who chose to carry to term a baby with anencephaly.  The creation of an interdisciplinary plan that met the many needs of this family is unique.   The goal of the family and the health care team was to work extensively to ensure that whatever amount of time the family had with their baby would make a lifetime of memories.  The team worked with the family exploring options and developing a comprehensive plan of care that supported the family’s wishes. 

In 1997 Kavanaugh studied components of supportive relationships between health care workers and parents who experienced a perinatal loss.  Two of the three most helpful behaviors identified in the study, stand out as most applicable to this situation.  Giving information in a straightforward manner and giving special attention to this family while making them a priority over other patients. 

This family began to explore options as soon as they found out the fatal diagnosis.  This family decided to celebrate the life that was created and to “parent” this baby through the time of his death.  They contacted the hospital to begin to formulate a plan.  Options were discussed in a straightforward method (i.e., heroic vs. comfort measures.)  Unique requests were met; from the first contact that the family made with the hospital and through current day – months after the loss.

The multi-person team collaborated on this case for approximately 20 weeks.  When the day of the birth arrived, the preparation and teamwork was evident as the plans put in place months earlier were “working like clockwork”.  After the parents went home, the nurses reviewed the outcome of this case.  All involved parties agreed that this case was extremely emotional and complex, yet very rewarding.  All disciplines remarked about how much was “taught” by this baby and family.  We all can learn how to make the time of an unfortunate situation into a lifetime of memories for families.