Palliative care in the neonatal intensive care unit: An Indian experience

The survival of newborn babies born with various problems has improved with the access to life sustaining technologies. Despite this, death in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is an inevitable reality. For babies suffering from life limiting illnesses, the health care team has a duty to alleviate the physical suffering of the baby and to support the family with sensitive communication. Palliative care is a multidisciplinary approach to relieve the physical, psycho-social, and spiritual suffering of patients and their families. Palliative care provision in the Indian NICU settings is insufficient at present. In this paper we attempt to “build a case” for palliative care in the Indian NICU setting.