14 DAY TRIAL // A paper published in the latest issue of the journal Economics and Human Biology, and authored by experts at the University of Notre Dame, suggests that mothers are 133 percent more likely to die in the first two years after losing a child than at other times in their lives.
Losing someone you love is always difficult, but the pain parents feel after losing a child is arguably the most intense. Being subjected to it apparently makes mothers more likely to die, or be committed to mental institutions for the first time, for treatment.
The 9-year study focused on a nationally representative sample of 69,224 mothers, aged 20 to 50, from the United States. The team found that the risk mothers were exposed to was not influenced by their social statuses, incomes, education levels, family sizes and so on, PsychCentral reports.
In addition, women were found to be much more likely to suffer from mental disorders following the loss of a child than men were. After the first two years, the risk diminished substantially.