The death of a loved one, and especially of a child, is one of the most difficult experiences that a human being can go through. Surely you will have heard that when in a couple who has been together for many years one dies, the other dies soon after, because he is not able to continue living alone. Well, something similar happens when you lose a child of a few months, because Parents who have lost a baby before the age of one tend to live less.
Researchers in the United Kingdom analyzed a random sample of fathers and mothers whose children survived beyond the first year of life, and fathers and mothers whose baby died before reaching the first year of life. They have found that fathers and mothers who lose their child during the first 12 months of life suffer a significant increase in the risk of dying themselves at an early age. And that in addition, the effect can last up to 25 years after the death of the baby.
There is no doubt that the loss of a child can have devastating effects on fathers, but it seems to be more pronounced in the case of mothers. The study figures showed that mothers who had lost a baby were especially likely to die prematurely.
When analyzing the results by country, they observed that fathers and mothers in Scotland had more than twice as likely to die or be widowed in the first 15 years after the death of their baby, while the mothers of England and Wales had more than four times as likely to die in the first 15 years after death.
Although they have seen that these probabilities gradually decreased over time, 25 years after the baby's death were still 1.5 times more likely to die than mothers who had not lost their child prematurely.
The loss of a child must be something terrible, I tremble just thinking about it, especially when we talk about premature deaths, at a stage in which the emotional bond with the baby is so strong.
The death of a baby of a few months cheers up the parents, which causes harmful biological effects in your body, deteriorating their immune system and making them more prone to physical and mental illness.
They have also linked the increased chance of dying after the death of a child with the alcohol consumption. Many parents who have lost their babies drown their sorrows in alcohol (remember that the study was conducted in the United Kingdom, where there is a high consumption of alcoholic beverages), which raises the chances of developing diseases related to excessive consumption, or of suffering serious accidents due to being under its effects.
The study is most interesting, and although it speaks of babies under one year, I suppose the effect is also applicable to children of other ages. There are parents who draw strength from where there are none, perhaps seeking refuge in other children (if this is the case), but for others their life goes out (metaphorically) after the death of a child. As I heard over there, "When a child dies, he does not continue to live, he survives".
