Enigma in swaddling clothes: sudden infant death syndrome.

SIDS strikes suddenly, and its cause is unknown. It elicits trauma such as profound guilt and calls into question a lost parental role and status, the ability of parents to fulfill the societal expectation of child rearing, and the legitimacy of the grief process for which the parents are unprepared. Grief includes reactions to loss and separation anxiety and results from lost attachments experienced by parents. Counselors can help rebuild the emotional constellations of bereaved parents, ease the communication between the parents, and interpret the needs of one parent to the other. When counseling bereaved parents they should enlist the help of resilient and emotionally mature family members. Because many bereaved parents abruptly leave their homes to forget and recover, helping professionals should move swiftly yet cautiously to aid immediate and extended families. Their efforts may be the first and last change to intervene.