Specific grief reactions to the death of a child
Parents whose child has died experience several of the typical grief reactions that are previously mentioned in this article (See above section “Common Reactions to Grief”).  We now look specifically at some of the common grief reactions bereaved parents experience.
1. Physical reactions.  Typical physical reactions to the loss of a child include weight loss, loss of appetite, sleep disturbance, irritability, listlessness, shortness of breath, difficulty in swallowing, skin irritations, and even loss of hair.
2. Shock.  When parents learn that their child is dead, it is not uncommon for them to go into a state of shock.  The dulling of your emotions that occurs when your child dies is due to shock.  This is a normal and healthy response that protects you.  Your mind allows the reality of loss and the accompanying pain to surface into your conscious mind incrementally in amounts that you are able to handle and process without being suddenly and totally overwhelmed all at once.  The shock gradually diminishes as you are able to face the reality of their death.
3. Numbness.  This is closely associated with shock.  This temporary numbness and lack of feeling plays an important role in our grief experience because it allows our conscious mind to incrementally take in and process the reality of our child’s death.  We will be able to feel our emotions later on; however, this temporary numbness allows our emotions to catch up with what our minds know.
4. Denial and disbelief.  The truth about the death of a child seems so unbelievable that, at first, parents refuse to believe that death has really occurred.  Disbelief is so strong for bereaved parents because the death of a child is something for which few persons are prepared.  Thus many parents deny that their child has died.  They say, “No, this has not really happened.  Our child is not really dead.  Not our child.”  Everything within us resists the truth that our child is dead, and our natural human tendency is to deny what we know to be true.  Parents are not prepared to face the reality that their child preceded them in death.
5. Anger.  For a period of time many bereaved parents feel that life is unfair, that they have been cheated and violated, that life will never again be the same, and they will never again be happy and fulfilled.  The death of a child provokes intense anger.  Bereaved parents have difficulty in knowing where to direct their anger.  They may find themselves speaking sharply and unkindly to each other, the other children or others who are close to them.  A father who had lost his daughter in a vehicular accident expressed his anger: “Now that my daughter is dead, she will never be able to have children and watch them grow up and mature.”  Remember that anger is a normal response to the death of a child, and it is important for you to learn to express your anger because this allows you to release the pressure and stress that build up within, and it can alleviate extended depression which may occur later.
6. Frustration and helplessness.  In the face of the reality of death people realize that there is nothing they can do to change reality and bring their child back.  There is this sense of being helpless in the face of what has happened.  Everything inside a person cries out and longs to do something, but there is nothing that can be done.
7. A need to place blame.  Because a baby’s death seems so unnatural, there is a strong urge to blame someone for the baby’s death.  Because human beings have a need to explain things that happen, especially the unexpected tragedies, they have a need to place blame when “things go wrong.”  Bereaved parents often blame themselves, nurses, their doctor or God.
8. Guilt.  One of the typical reactions that bereaved parents experience is guilt.  These guilt reactions are closely associated with anger and a need to place blame, and parents often blame themselves for the death of their child, especially in the case of the death of an unborn baby.  For example, expectant mothers who lose a baby blame themselves for not eating a proper diet or doing too much physical exertion.  Parents instinctively feel responsible for their children’s health, wellbeing, and safety, and when their child dies, many parents blame themselves.  Even though these regrets are not always realistic, they are real in the minds of the parents.  Parents blame themselves and feel that they should have realized that there was something wrong with their baby, and that they should have notified their doctor.  There is a feeling that “I should have done something to have prevented my child’s death.”  Bereaved parents agonize over the question, “What could I have done to have prevented this from happening?”
Grief often expresses itself in thoughts and feelings of “if only.”  Guilt is often turned inward, and is expressed in the question, “Why didn’t I do something?”  This often results in the fantasy of changing the reality of what happened by stopping the clock and re-doing things that occurred at a certain time on a particular day. 
When children die people search for answers, but a child’s death often raises questions that seem to have no reasonable answers, and persons often use guilt to create some kind of meaning in a situation that seems to have no meaning, and also to answer the “Why?” questions.  Thus recognize that your guilt is, in part, your search for answers and meaning.  Realize that guilt is a common reaction when we are going through grief.  Share these guilt feelings and forgive yourself.  Reassure yourself with the truth that you would have done anything to have prevented the death of your child, and that you are not to blame for their death.  In the case of a SIDS death, the parents’ sense of guilt may be increased and deepened by the fact that county health officials are required to conduct a medical investigation after a SIDS death.  Official questions may seem to imply blame to the bereaved parents.
9. Depression and despair.  For a period of time bereaved parents experience a loss of energy or drive which is necessary to function in the daily routine of life.  Your child’s death may create a sense of meaninglessness that causes you to feel like giving up and not wanting to live.  You ask, “What’s the use?”  There seems to be no relief from the dense and heavy sadness that hangs on unrelentingly.  Bereaved persons describe feeling alone, even when they are in a crowd.  This sense of loneliness is so overwhelming because you realize that you will never see this person again in this life.  This is the loss of someone who was an important part of your life, but now they are gone.  You may reach a point that you want to withdraw from life.  You may have thoughts of committing suicide or fear that you are going crazy.  Some bereaved parents describe this as a period of time during which they experience an inability to even see colors that they would normally see; however, instead they see only shades of gray and black.  If your depression is prolonged and chronic, see a counselor.
10. Emptiness.  This is closely associated with depression that is caused by grief.  As the reality of the baby’s death sinks in, bereaved parents often experience depression and a tremendous sense of emptiness.  Bereaved persons feel an immense void.  The child to whom parents would gladly and freely give their love is no longer physically present.  They are now gone.  If a child dies before birth or shortly after birth, bereaved parents experience an overwhelming sense of emptiness.  During pregnancy there is so much thrill, wonder, exuberance, excitement, expectation, dreaming, and anticipation, yet when the baby dies, there is such a tremendous “letdown” that all previous feelings are shattered and persons are suddenly filled with emptiness.  As the reality of a baby’s death sinks in, bereaved parents often experience depression and an overwhelming sense of emptiness.
11. Loss of meaning and loss of the future.  Closely associated with feelings of depression and emptiness is a loss of meaning.  Bereaved parents often describe themselves as simply “marking time” and “going through the motions.”  Because of their child they had so many dreams about the future; however, now their dreams have been shattered, and meaninglessness has replaced their expectations and excitement.  Before their child died they could hardly contain their anticipation of the future; however, now the future seems closed.  After preparing for the birth of a baby, bereaved parents now find themselves trying to deal with the death of their baby.  They not only lose the hopes, dreams, and expectations they had for the child, but they lose a great deal of that for themselves, because the future, in great part, was dependent upon the child’s future life.  Now that the baby has died, there will be no fulfillment and realization of these dreams and expectations.  Because parents naturally dream about the kinds of things that will happen to their children and their children’s children in the future, when the death of a child occurs, in one sense, the door of future experiences of this deceased child’s life is closed.  Parents realize that their deceased child is no longer physically present.  Opportunities for this child to become a parent (or to give birth to more children if they are already a parent) are no longer a possibility.  Dreams about the kinds of things that will happen to a deceased child and the things he/she will do suddenly become a horrible nightmare of reality that cannot be explained.  Bereaved parents often describe their reaction to the closed doors of the future as utter despair and life’s darkest moment.  Now everything has changed.  Hope and desire seem to have vanished.  One is filled with emptiness, and life seems meaninglessness.  It is not uncommon for bereaved parents--at least temporarily--to feel that they now have no reason to live go on with life.  
12. Loss of concern and a lack of caring.  Immediately following their child’s death bereaved parents are so overcome with grief that for a period of time it is very difficult for them to be concerned and caring.  Grief over the loss of a child is so overwhelming that one can temporarily become indifferent, which is totally contrary to their normal attitude. 
13. Withdrawal.  Closely associated with a loss of concern is withdrawal.  Bereaved parents are so overwhelmed with grief due to the loss of their child that they have very little interest in what is going on in the world around them.  They might be oblivious to current news stories and current events.  When we are going through grief it is very difficult to focus on people, events, and things that are outside ourselves. 
14. Preoccupation with the deceased child.  It is common for bereaved parents to become preoccupied with their deceased child and the circumstances of their child’s death.  Some bereaved parents even make the child’s room a shrine where everything in that room remains in tact, untouched, unmoved, and the same as it was when their child was alive.
15. Mental confusion.  Psychologists refer to this as a “non-cognitive” period during which it is difficult to think clearly.  Because bereaved parents are filled with so much despair, it is very difficult for them to think clearly.  For a period of time, one’s powers of thinking, reasoning, remembering, planning, and problem-solving are greatly affected and diminished.  Even a minimum of thinking and reasoning becomes very difficult, and dealing with more serious issues seems overwhelming.  You may become temporarily forgetful and unable to remember simple things that you have known for a lifetime, or you may be unable to remember items you were going to purchase in a store.  This confusion may make it difficult for you to make even simple decisions.  This involves a combination of confusion, fear, guilt, and disorganization. 
Emotions and thoughts that are associated with grief can be intense and explosive.  Surges of these feelings that are associated with grief can occur unexpectedly, suddenly, simultaneously or in waves.  Because they are so intense and overwhelming, these feelings and thoughts often leave a person physically, emotionally, and mentally drained and exhausted.  These feelings are a natural response to the death of a child.  However, you can take comfort in the fact that, in time, your clarity of mind will return.
16. Sadness and sorrow.  As initial responses like shock and anger begin to subside, you may feel yourself slipping into a state of sadness.  You may feel miserable.  Sorrow and sadness are overwhelming and, for a period of time, drive out joy and happiness.  Bereaved persons feel a need to cry, but some persons fear that if they ever start crying they will not be able to stop; however, crying is normal and enables the sadness to subside.  You will be able to stop crying when your mind and body are ready.
17. Unavoidable reminders of a deceased child.  In the case of the death of a baby, such things as baby clothes, infant seat, bottles, crib, playpen, baby furniture, diapers, telephone calls and mailing advertisements for infant photographs, sympathy cards, the nursery, and baby food all serve as constant reminders of the deceased baby.  Walking past infant clothing and toy displays in a store may create an instant grief-reaction for bereaved parents, and these reactions may be overwhelming and long-lasting.  It is not uncommon for bereaved parents to hurriedly leave a store when strong grief reactions are precipitated and evoked by the sight of certain items of merchandise in the baby section of a store.  Many of these things are unavoidable when persons are “out and about” in their normal daily routine and shopping rounds.