Marital Stability Following the Birth of a Child with Spina Bifida

Abstract

Summary: The matrimonial stability of 142 families where a child with neural tube malformation (mostly spina bifida) was born between 1964 and 1966, including 56 families with a surviving spina bifida child, was examined in January 1976. The divorce rate for families with a surviving child was found to be nine times higher than that for the local population and three times higher than for families experiencing bereavement of their spina bifida child. Marriages which followed a pre-nuptial conception resulting in a spina bifida child were particularly vulnerable and had a divorce or separation risk of 50 per cent. All the divorced fathers had remarried, but only one of the mothers. It is concluded that a handicapped child adds greatly to the strain on a marriage, especially when this has not been cemented before the arrival of a child. This strain is diminished by the child's early death.