Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, including details on sids, causes, prevention, statistics.

Are autopsies of help to the parents of SIDS victims? : A follow-up on SIDS families.

Vennemann MM, Rentsch C, Bajanowski T, Zimmer G

Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Münster, Röntgenstraße 23, 48149, Münster, Germany, vennemam@uni-muenster.de.

Little is known about what bereaved parents feel about the autopsy performed on their child. A multi-centre case control study of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims was carried out in Germany between 1998 and 2001, in which all infants had been autopsied. We performed a follow-up study 4-7 years after the parents had lost their child. A total of 141 parents filled in the questionnaire, which were sent to them by the study centre. Of these, 71% had had another child after the SIDS/sudden unexpected death in infancy. The majority (83%) of the participating parents found the autopsy helped them to cope better with the death. A large proportion (46%) did not want any professional help after the death, and 55% did not wish to have any contact with a self-help group. We conclude that the autopsy is helpful to the majority of bereaved parents. Professional help and self-help groups should be offered to the parents even if the majority in our study did not want to use either.

Published 24 October 2006 in Int J Legal Med, 120(6): 352-354.
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