Parents of children with congenital heart disease
Talking to health professionals
There is no easy way to tell a parent that their unborn baby or child has a congenital heart defect. But how parents are told can have a powerful impact on their state of mind, coping ability and future relationship with their child's medical team.
Communicating well with parents about their child's illness is a special skill. As one of the mothers interviewed said, 'Worried parents aren't rational, they're not thinking straight. They're not understanding what's being said to them. They need things repeating. They're probably not even listening'.
Parents we interviewed spoke very highly of the doctors who cared for and treated their child. Many felt they had excellent relationships with their child's cardiac care team. Many doctors had taken time to explain their child's diagnosis and treatment options to parents in a way that they could understand. They had repeated information, drawn diagrams and even used a model of a heart.
One mother comments that the communication with the cardiac care team had been excellent, that they had provided emotional support and built a close relationship with their family. Another couple appreciated the open and honest approach of their son's consultant and said he was always accessible.
Comments that the communication with cardiac care team had been excellent and that they supported...
Comments that the communication with cardiac care team had been excellent and that they supported...
Parents we talked to stressed that when a child is first diagnosed, they need information about their child's illness to be communicated in simple language. Many had found the terms and abbreviations used very difficult to understand. One couple describe the difficulties they had understanding the terminology and not feeling able to ask for explanations.
Initially found the terminology used by doctors difficult to understand and didn't feel able to...
Initially found the terminology used by doctors difficult to understand and didn't feel able to...
Mother' Yeah and they weren't in the dictionary, were they? And things that you didn't know [Father' Right] And they were always feeling for his liver and I've never know why they felt for his liver [Father' Hmm] and they would say in the report, two centimetres, something, something and you wouldn't know what that meant [Father' No] why should his liver be there and his what was it, hands and feet are not clubbed, well what did that mean.
Father' Terminology to the doctors and the specialists is everyday language, [Mother' Yeah] and when they're talking to each other sometimes, you think they're talking a foreign language. You're just sitting there not knowing what they're talking about and they come, they use numbers and letters and...
Mother' Yeah, and like the heart beat things and two fifths and did,...oh, I don't know, it was just.
Father' With all the good will in the world, they haven't got time, when they've got 20 other children to look at. They haven't got time for you to keep stopping them, interrupting them, although you want to because you want to know all of the details, what does that mean? That the doctors and they're under such pressure to get through that day. So you can't keep interrupting them because so you're stuck in a dilemma, that you want to know what all these things mean because they don't, you don't get a piece of a paper, which would be nice, a list with all the terms on it so that you could look.
Mother' I think they are quite, I think the new heart book,
Father' Yeah, yeah, but...
Mother' It's got those in.
Father' ...but when you're just going into it, in the first time, you haven't got the heart book, you only get the heart book afterwards sort of thing, or during. On your first appointment, it would be nice to have a little piece of paper that tells you all the things that they're talking about. [Mother' Hmmm] You know the terms.
Mother' But they often, like, tell you don't they to take notes or something about what they're saying but you feel too silly to do something like that, sitting there writing it down, but you forget don't you, what you said... and then...
Father' Well a lot of the things are a blur.
Mother' You just perhaps are so shocked by what they say; you forget to ask what it means or something like that.
One father admits that it can be difficult for doctors to find the right approach. He appreciated the direct and straightforward way in which their son's consultant had told them that he needed open heart surgery, whereas his wife would have preferred a more sensitive approach.
Comment that different parents prefer different ways of communicating with their child's doctor...
Comment that different parents prefer different ways of communicating with their child's doctor...
Father' But again it is different when he doesn't know us from Adam. I, again I think he's better now because we know him better.
But again, I think the other thing is different people want different things [Mother' Hmm], I was quite happy with him in a way [Mother' Being straight] straight whereas [my wife] would have been a bit more, so it's difficult to actually say to the doctor's well this is what you've got to do or this is what you haven't got to do because everyone's different aren't they? So it must be pretty hard for them at the end of the day. No doubt about it.
Good communication during times of stress can make a difference to parents. One couple describes the extra effort their child's surgeon made in communicating with them when she was having her operation. A father explains that poor communication between the nurses on the ward about his son's medication and feeding requirements had made a difficult situation more stressful than it needed to be.
Describes the extra effort their child's surgeon made in communicating with them which they said...
Describes the extra effort their child's surgeon made in communicating with them which they said...
And he had a lovely conversation with my husband as well about his family and he's got children and how difficult he perceived we must have found it. And little touches like that, lovely, really, really nice.
Felt communication between nurses on the cardiac ward could have been better.
Felt communication between nurses on the cardiac ward could have been better.
Now that's the first time we've been in hospital. We've never been in hospital before. We won't know what a cannula really is but they told us what the cannula and why it is bandaged up and all this. We didn't know that, for example, that had to be redone every day, re-bandaged. But it never was bandaged, or it never was re-bandaged, it wasn't done up again. For 3 days it didn't happen. Now each time, he would lie like this and when he vomited his milk out the milk would go on that bandage, some of it would soak through, seep through more and more and get soggy and a bit, after 3 days the thing starts stinking. So we go to the nurse and say, 'See that's thing is stinking, can you do something about it?', 'It's not my shift'. 'Ok. Fine can somebody do it?', 'Yes'. One day goes like that then somebody comes and says 'oh has nobody been doing anything about this?'. We've been crying our hearts out for somebody to do something about it. 'Okay, then somebody does. And you see this guy's hand all shrivelled up and it's bad. And it's so bad, the way it's all become soggy and wet and obviously you'll see that if your hand is. I say 'oh that's pathetic' That's not pathetic, the service is. That's what I mean when I say, the nurse's job is not just a job. I mean they are doing their job, they are coming, they are bandaging, it's not that they're not doing it but it's more than that. It requires some patience and it requires some dedication and some responsibility. Not everyone can become a nurse. They should be, anyway.
And when you go, when one person finishes a shift, he has to ensure that the next person who is taking over knows, or rather the actual take-over, the actual transition is very smooth. They have to ensure. Half the time we have to go to this person and say, 'This is what happened in the previous shift, can you do something about it now?'
You would think that was the basic, that was what you would expect and if you have to fight for that. Again, they have done a great deal for us. I mean they have, obviously they have helped our son.
In some cases, communication between parent and doctor could have been better. One mother explains that the way her child's doctor communicated her son' diagnosis was not helpful and suggests a way that would have been better.
The way her child's doctor communicated her son' diagnosis was not helpful and suggests the way...
The way her child's doctor communicated her son' diagnosis was not helpful and suggests the way...
One of the things there is supposed to be, it's improving I think. So how would you have liked for him to have told you?
Well first of all I'll tell you the way he did tell me. He just sort of fidgeted and was like "Oh, god, I don't want to tell you this but I've got to", "Oh this is really awful, how do I tell you, oh I'll just blurt it out and tell you, your son's got this condition and it was just... now if he'd just sat us down really calmly like he does this every day. "I'm just going to tell you what's wrong with Joe, and then I'm going to go away for half an hour while you have a cup of tea. And then I'm going to come back and talk to you and I'll ask any questions and we'll tape it so you can take it home and that would have been great and he could have told me and I could have sat in the room with [my husband], had a cup of tea, and then thought, oh, and if he'd come back half an hour later and said now I'm going to tell you again, and I'm going to tape it and I'm going to write it down and then you can go home and then we'll meet again in a week and you can talk to me then or you can talk to some, anybody, it doesn't have to be him. I know they're busy. It doesn't have to be him. And we'll meet again in a week, and we can talk again.
That would have been great in an ideal world but I understand they haven't got that time. And, or have you? It would have made a big difference I think. I think the fact that I had nothing to bring home, other than my memories and my memories weren't clear. Because all my memory was, was fear. I think in a very, very, very, distressing situation having to rely on your memory is not a good thing, not for the hospital and not for the parents. And certainly not for the baby. So that needs addressing I think.
The way the cardiac care team had communicated with children was also important. One mother recalled the way doctors talked to her son and how they always had time for him. She remembers that once, her son's consultant had stopped his car when he was leaving the hospital car park to chat to her son which had made him feel very special.
Describes the way the doctors talked to her son and explained that they always had time for him.
Describes the way the doctors talked to her son and explained that they always had time for him.
After appointments, parents may have questions or concerns that they need answered but may not feel able to contact the consultant to ask questions. One mother explains that she sent her consultant an email detailing her questions and concerns and he telephoned her at home the following afternoon, and that made her feel very reassured.
Explains that she sent her consultant an email detailing her questions and concerns and he called...
Explains that she sent her consultant an email detailing her questions and concerns and he called...
When I found out about this second operation, the mitral valve. I came back and I was reading everything and I was on the Internet, everywhere I was looking. And then I typed up this letter to send it to [our son's] consultant, I think I might have emailed it to him. All these questions I had; can you please tell me this, why was it not detected before, has this just happened, was he born with this and you've only just discovered it, is it something that's happened in the meantime and so I sent him all of these questions because I said I'm completely confused, I don't understand, how come I was so unprepared for this and I thought, oh gosh, wonder when I'll get a response.
And then the next afternoon, he rang me up. It was brilliant. He rang me up and he was chatting through it all and talking, talking, just explaining everything to me. And I came off the phone feeling really much more reassured because when we were at the hospital, after the catheter and he told me, I just wasn't thinking straight, I just went to pieces. My dad was there with me. And my dad said to me, 'try and stay calm, he's got options'. So all I remember is my dad saying that, he's got options. I just couldn't think straight, I just couldn't, I was just. So when I sent this email to the hospital and then he rang me up the next day, with all these questions, that was just brilliant. I felt very reassured because he'd done that. I thought that was very good of him to do that.
Mothers may have frequent contact with their health visitor during their child's early months of life. Several mothers stressed how important it was for health visitors not to make mothers feel a failure if they were having problems feeding their baby. ( See ‘Sources of support’ for more experiences with health visitors, nurses and doctors.)
Last reviewed July 2018.
Last updated December 2011.
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