your right Magdalene, things have changed... but it doesn't happen often enough for there to be a word for it.. and i doubt one will be coined.

You might be surprised at how often children die even today. The reason you hardly ever hear about it is that there is a strong social pressure against discussing the death of a child. Because the death of a child is less expected and because the bereaved parents are often discouraged from mentioning their experience, losing a child may be an even more traumatic experience today than it was a hundred years ago when it was expected and okay to talk about.

I think that there is some potential for a neologism. It would most likely come from a group of people like "Compassionate Friends" and then spread through the media to the general population. Whether a word actually is coined or not depends mostly, I'd suppose, on the needs and wishes of the bereaved parents themselves.

The question arose in my mind after reading a news story by reporter Lindy Washburn in which the author said, "Women who have lost their husbands are called widows. Women who have lost children should have their own special term, so defining is the ordeal." It struck me that there really should be a word for that and how surprising that there isn't.