Child Death and Mothers' Subsequent Mental Health in a High-Mortality African Community.

ABSTRACT: Despite declines in child mortality rates, experiencing a child death remains a common feature of motherhood in many contemporary African populations. Yet, we lack population insights into the consequences of child death for mothers' well-being in the high-mortality regions where it concentrates. Contrasting an extensive psychology literature on the severe and long-lasting consequences of child death for parents in low-mortality settings, a long-standing thesis in multiple social science literature is that the normativity of child death in high-mortality settings can lead to a numbing effect-muting parents' reactions to child loss. Yet, select anthropological accounts challenge this thesis, arguing instead that child death can also bear notable consequences for bereaved parents in communit

SUBMITTER: Smith-Greenaway E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11737056 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature