The Effects of Grief

The loss of a child is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a person. A recent study conducted by the Danish Epidemiology Science Center has shown that there is a definite relation between mental illness and parent bereavement. "This is a very important study, because bereavement traditionally has been way underrecognized and undertreated in medicine and psychiatry," said Dr. M. Katherine Shear, director of the Bereavement and Grief Program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The study was led by Dr. Jiong Li who, along with a team of doctors, analyzed the medical records of more than a million people who had at least one child born before 1999. A total of approximately 17,000 parents in the database had lost a child under 18, and 495 of them were hospitalized for psychiatric problems for the first time in the five years afterward. In the year after the death, bereaved mothers were almost seven times as likely as their non-grieving peers to be hospitalized for a mood disorder, like depression; about four times as likely to be admitted for schizophrenia; and nearly three times as likely to be admitted for abusing drugs and alcohol. Bereaved fathers were at lower risk than bereaved mothers during this first year, but were still nearly six times as likely as fathers who weren't grieving to be admitted for a mood disorder like depression, and more than twice as likely for schizophrenia. With time, the difference in risk between the bereaved parents and their peers narrowed significantly, but after five years the bereaved group still had a higher rate of being hospitalized for psychiatric problems - about 40 percent higher in fathers, nearly 80 percent in mothers. Also, parents who had lost an only child were at higher risk than those who had larger families. *

I have never personally experience the loss of a child who was near to me. Still I can understand how it can very painful. I sympathize with the parents who have suffered such a great loss because I know how it feels for people to ignore your feelings because they think you should have been done grieving already. So my heart goes out.

*most of this come directly from the article http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/health/24child.html.