When a Baby Dies of SIDS

The Parents’ Grief and Search for Reason

Karen Martin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138403536
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315415796
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The cause of the number-one killer of apparently healthy infants between the ages of one week and one year—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)—continues to defy science. This cruel mystery intensifies an already painful experience for bereaved parents, who frequently blame themselves for their baby's death. This book explores how parents grieve, the meanings and casual explanations they attribute to a SIDS death, the effects of their grief on family relationships, and the strategies they use to cope and carry on. Karen Martin's grounded theory study describes in detail the experiences of mothers and fathers whose babies died of SIDS ranging from less than one to over twenty-five years after the baby's death. Her work makes an important contribution to health fields and to the social science of medicine, and is a critical resource for family doctors, public health nurses, counsellors, ministers, and all those working with grieving parents.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Understanding SIDS and its impact
• 2 Understanding the parents’ experience: Loving a new baby
• 3 Understanding the parents’ experience: Being devastated
• 4 Understanding the parents’ experience: Trying to carry on while struggling for control
• 5 Understanding the parents’ experience: Learning to let go
• 6 Understanding the parents’ experience: Being changed
• 7 Learning from the parents’ experience: How people cope with traumatic events
• 8 Making connections to other research
• 9 Recommendations
• 10 Conclusion
• Appendix A: Methodology
• Appendix B: Invitation to participate
• Appendix C: Letter to invite participation
• Appendix D: Parents’ consent form
• Bibliography
• Index