title: Increased mortality in parents bereaved in the first year of their child's life.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify the relative risk (RR) of mortality in bereaved parents compared with non-bereaved counterparts.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective data linkage study.
  
  
  METHODS
  United Kingdom, 1971-2006.
  
  
  METHODS
  A random sample from death registrations (5%) of parents who had a live birth where the infant lived beyond its first year of life (non-bereaved parents) and parents who had experienced a stillbirth or the death of a child in its first year of life (bereaved parents) between 1971 and 2006.
  
  
  METHODS
  Death or widowhood of the parent.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Bereaved parents in Scotland (n=738) were more than twice as likely to die in the first 15 years after their child's death than non-bereaved parents (n=50 132), p<0.005. Bereaved mothers in England and Wales (n=481) were more than four times as likely to die in the first 15 years after their child's birth than non-bereaved parents (n=30 956), p<0.001. The mortality risk for bereaved mothers compared with non-bereaved mothers, followed up for 25 years after death, was 1.5 (bereaved n=745, non-bereaved n=36 434), p<0.005. When followed up for 35 years, the risk of mortality for bereaved mothers (n=1120) was 1.2 times that of non-bereaved mothers (n=36 062), p<0.005.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bereaved parents who experience stillbirth or infant death have markedly increased mortality compared with non-bereaved parents, up to 25 years (mean) after the death of their child. However, the RR reduces over time.
authors.affiliation: Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, York, UK.
authors.forename: Mairi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Harper
authors.forename: Rory C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.forename: Ronan E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: O'Carroll
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001601:Bereavement; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D066088:Infant Death; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D010290:Parents; D011247:Pregnancy; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012306:Risk; D050497:Stillbirth; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult