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

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.