Les soins palliatifs en pédiatrie (hors anténatal)Â -Â paradoxes et questions éthiques

Daring to talk about pediatric palliative care may seem indecent as the death of a child is rare in occidental countries. Ethical issues are not lacking in this context since the disease confronts the child but also the parents and caregivers to talk about predictable death that nobody wants to imagine. The first difficulty is to determine when the child's illness brings the child into the dimension of palliative care and thus can benefit from the resources of members of these specialized palliative care teams. Others issues relate to the experiences of parents and caregivers face to the decision to stop the active treatment, face to terminal sedation and also to give responsibility and autonomy to the child. Moreover, it is always extremely difficult to determine the border between reasonable and unreasonable obstinacy.