Best practice in perinatal bereavement care suggests offering parents the opportunity to spend time with their baby. Cold cots facilitate this purpose by reducing the deterioration of the body and evidence indicates their wide availability in maternity and neonatal units in the UK. This study aimed to examine healthcare professionals’ perceptions and experiences of using a cold cot following the loss of a baby. A qualitative cross-sectional study was designed. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 maternity and neonatal unit healthcare professionals who worked across three UK hospital settings. Data were analysed using inductive reflexive thematic analysis. Findings revealed that staff had predominantly positive views about, and experiences of, using a cold cot. The technology was highly valued because it facilitated parents to spend time with their baby and participants reported that it was generally easy to use and smoothly embedded into the clinical environment. Cold cots were deemed useful when mothers were medically unwell and needed time to recover, when parents struggled to say goodbye to their baby, wished to take the baby home, or wanted their baby to stay in the unit instead of going straight to the mortuary. The use of technology was further perceived to be relevant in scenarios of unexpected loss, post-mortem examination and with babies of late gestations or neonates. Despite staff expressing comfort with the delay of visual and olfactory body changes, the coldness of the baby’s body that was accelerated with the use of a cold cot was a major concern as it connoted and possibly exacerbated the reality of death. Cold cots allow the materialisation of modern bereavement care practices that recognise the importance of continuing bonds with the deceased that is made possible through the creation of memories within an extremely restricted timeframe. Simultaneously, the body coldness concentrates the ambivalence toward an inherently paradoxical death, that of a baby. Training in perinatal bereavement care, including the use of cold cots, would help staff support bereaved parents whilst acknowledging dilemmas and managing contradictions encompassed in death at the time or near the time of birth.

中文翻译：

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医疗保健专业人员在失去婴儿后使用冷床的看法和经验：英国产科和新生儿科的定性研究


围产期丧亲护理的最佳实践建议为父母提供与婴儿共度时光的机会。冷床通过减少身体的恶化来促进这一目的，有证据表明冷床在英国的产科和新生儿科室中广泛使用。这项研究旨在调查医疗保健专业人员在婴儿去世后使用冷床的看法和经验。设计了一项定性横断面研究。对在英国三所医院工作的 33 名妇产科和新生儿科医疗保健专业人员进行了深入的半结构化访谈。使用归纳反思主题分析来分析数据。调查结果显示，工作人员对使用冷床的看法和体验大多持积极态度。该技术受到高度重视，因为它方便父母与婴儿共度时光，参与者报告说，该技术通常易于使用并顺利嵌入到临床环境中。当母亲身体不适、需要时间恢复、难以与婴儿告别、希望将婴儿带回家或希望婴儿留在病房而不是直接去太平间时，冷床被认为是有用的。人们进一步认为，技术的使用与意外死亡、尸检以及妊娠晚期婴儿或新生儿的情况相关。尽管工作人员对视觉和嗅觉身体变化的延迟表示安慰，但使用冷床加速婴儿身体的寒冷是一个主要问题，因为它意味着并可能加剧死亡的现实。 冷床使现代丧亲护理实践得以实现，这些实践认识到通过在极其有限的时间内创造记忆而与死者保持持续联系的重要性。与此同时，身体的寒冷将矛盾心理集中到了一种本质上矛盾的死亡上，即婴儿的死亡。围产期丧亲护理培训，包括使用冷床，将帮助工作人员支持失去亲人的父母，同时承认困境并处理出生时或临近出生时死亡所包含的矛盾。