Bereaved parents more likely to die young

Parents who lose a baby during its first year of life are much more likely to die early themselves, new research suggests.

While it is commonly believed that people can die of a “broken heart” when losing a partner, little research has been done on the risks to bereaved parents.

Now a study published in the journal BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care has found that bereaved parents are between two and four times more likely to die early or become widowed in the first ten years after losing a child compared with those who are not bereaved.

This applied to parents who suffered a stillbirth, or whose baby died in the first year of life.

The effect is particularly pronounced in mothers, who are 1.5 times more likely to die early in the first 25 years after a death compared to those who have not lost a baby.

At 35 years, the risk was 1.2 times higher for bereaved mothers compared to those who had not lost a baby.

The authors, from the Universities of Stirling and York, said the increased risk of death among bereaved parents was of “major concern”. Larger-scale studies are needed to identify the causes of death and whether anything can be done to help parents, they said.

“For example, bereaved parents may be more likely to have committed suicide than matched non-bereaved comparisons,” they said.

The stress of bereavement may also have significant effects on the body, such as suppressing the immune system and increasing the risk of disease.

“Bereaved parents may also be more likely to use maladaptive coping strategies such as alcohol misuse.

“This has been reported by parents following stillbirth and infant death and may in turn lead to higher incidence of alcohol-related illness or accidental death.

“It is imperative that cause of death be further investigated in order to establish the factors leading to increased mortality in bereaved parents.”

Another theory is that stillbirths and infant deaths are more common in people who have poor health, thereby contributing to their own lower life expectancy.

A breakdown of the results shows that parents in Scotland were more than twice as likely to die in the first 15 years after losing a child, while bereaved mothers in England and Wales were more than four times as likely.

The researchers looked at a random 5 per cent sample of UK death registrations among parents whose child lived beyond its first year and those whose child had died before reaching a first birthday for the period 1971 to 2006.

Every day in the UK 17 babies die – 11 stillbirths and six neonatal deaths – according stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands. The stillbirth rate has remained almost unchanged for the past ten years.

Jacqui Clinton, from baby charity Tommy’s, said: “The loss of a baby or child at any stage in its life is a devastating experience for parents.

“With around 4,000 babies stillborn in the UK each year, we need to invest in more research to try and reduce these rates and improve the care of bereaved parents to reduce the suffering caused to parents who have lost a child.”