Child Health Advice and Parental Obligation: The Case of Safe Sleep Recommendations and Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy

This article considers whether there is a parental obligation to comply with child health advice which is aimed at the general population and grounded in population-based research. Drawing upon the concept of role obligations, I argue that there is a temptation to use child health advice as a set of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jonas, Monique (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell [2016]
In: Bioethics
Year: 2016, Volume: 30, Issue: 2, Pages: 129-138
IxTheo Classification:NCH Medical ethics
Further subjects:B SUDI
B SIDS
B role obligations
B parental obligations
B child health advice
B child health
B Patient compliance
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Description
Summary:This article considers whether there is a parental obligation to comply with child health advice which is aimed at the general population and grounded in population-based research. Drawing upon the concept of role obligations, I argue that there is a temptation to use child health advice as a set of rules to which parents are morally obligated to comply, but that this temptation should be resisted. Using the case of Safe Sleep recommendations, designed to reduce the risk of sleep-related infant deaths, I present three reasons for doubting that parents are obligated, as a matter of course, to comply with child health advice. I suggest that, rather than compliance, deliberation about child health advice is obligatory, and that parents should have reasons for not following credible child health advice.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12174