Young children in poorer countries who lose their mother are at increased risk from when she becomes seriously ill, not just in the period following her death.
An international study including Oxford University researchers found increased risk of mortality among children aged under five in the months before their mother's death, as well as in the months after her death.
The research was carried out in a disadvantaged area in northeast South Africa near the border with Mozambique, and the results are published in the journal PLOS Medicine.