THE IMPACT OF A CHILD-DEATH ON MARITAL ADJUSTMENT

One continuing concern in the sociological and psychological literatur e has been with the mental health consequences of stressful life event s. Occasionally such stressful events have been linked to other outcom es such as a deterioration in the extent or quality of the relationshi p between a cohabiting (usually married) couple. This paper takes data from a longitudinal study of parents of an infant who has died (due t o a Stillbirth, Neonatal Death or Sudden Infant Death), to determine w hether the relationship between the parents is adversely affected. The follow-up data is available 2 months and 6-8 months after the infant death. The results indicate there is an increased marital break-up rat e for parents whose infant has died. Further, shortly after the death there is evidence of a deterioration of the quality of the marital rel ationship between the partners whose relationship has remained intact. Both these consequences of an infant death are unlikely to be due to chance, but their magnitude is relatively modest. At the 6 month follo w-up, there is evidence of a deterioration in the quality of the relat ionship for those partners whose infant survived, such that at 6 month s there are no longer any marital adjustment differences between paren ts experiencing an infant death and parents whose infant survived.