Death of a Son

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If death is sudden, grief is not necessarily greater than it would have been with an anticipated death. Grief therapies have also been found effective in situations of complicated grief, of which traumatic grief is one example [ 47].

According to several studies, between 65 and 95 percent of mothers and 51 and 85 percent of fathers report problems with preoccupation or irrational thoughts about their dead baby during the acute phase [ 81, 82]. Child death is infrequent in the United States and many parents feel stigmatized by their situation, become isolated, and find outreach difficult. Of interest in one study was the tendency of parents to blame the mother for the baby's death (26 percent of mothers and 13 percent of fathers), despite explanations by their physician to the contrary.This may seem bizarre to some readers however that may have been the state of affairs in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Particularly difficult and stressful for the mother is carrying a dead fetus when movement has ceased.

In time you will work out who is willing and able to listen to you, and these are the right people to have around you. Recent findings suggest that parents of children who die from any cause are more likely to suffer symptoms of traumatic stress and experience more severe problems with emotional dysregulation than occurs with the death of a spouse [ 10]. Dolores Cruz is the author of “Look Around; A Mother’s Journey from Grief and Despair to Healing and Hope. Children take on great symbolic importance in terms of parents' generativity [ 37] and hope for the future.Friends as well as other family members may be impatient about the “slow” rate of parents' recovery from the loss.

Also be prepared for younger children to ask the same questions again and again, both at this moment and over the days and weeks to come. Although once common, deaths of children between the ages of 1 and 14 now account for less than 5 percent of all deaths in the United States; about 57,428 infants, children, and adolescents died in 1996. Remember, knowing that their family is still strong can help your other children successfully navigate their grieving process, as well.Rather, individuals have concurrent and overlapping reactions that may recur at any time during the family's bereavement process. Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. In contrast, bereavement interventions focus on understanding the mourning process including feelings of loss and anticipation of reminders; resolving ambivalent feelings about the deceased, preserving positive memories of the deceased, accepting that the relationship is one of memory and recommitting to present relationships [ 48]. Anger may also be directed at the self, creating feelings of self-hatred, shame and worthlessness [ 28, 34- 36].