Parents decision to donate their child’s organs can make a huge impact in saving the lives of children suffering from organ failure.

The poll co-director Gary Freed, M.D.,M.P.H said that they discovered that parents had many misconceptions about child organ donation.
Freed goes on to point out that this is not a typical topic for discussion in schools or other platforms, hence generally parents become aware about child organ donation during their most difficult time of their lives. Not all hospitals have trained personnel to have proper discussion with grieving parents.
24% of parents who have children in their teens between the age 15 – 18 said that their children registered as organ donors. 22% of parents said that they would not encourage their children to choose the option to be registered organ donors, while 49% said that they would.
About less than half of the parents said that their teen has received some sort of awareness about organ donation. Most of the time teens are unlikely to receive information up until they have to make a decision to be registered as an organ donor.
Almost half of the parents (54%) showed that most of their concerns were whether their child’s life would be saved in the event of a life-threatening situation and that their child would suffer more if they kept their child alive for organ donation (53%). The cost of organ donation(30%) and not enough awareness if their child was in a position to donate (33%) was another concern.
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The organ transplant waitlist for kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs and other organs according to the Federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network have more than 2000 US children.
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More awareness should be given to help them understand their decision could help save many lives.
Source-Medindia