Advocates call for change following  ‘striking’ report on maternal deaths in Ireland

Dr Cliona Murphy said ‘widespread vaccination’ was one of the reasons that there was no link between maternal deaths and covid. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

A report on maternal deaths in Ireland raising concerns around “a significant decline in maternal mental health” during the pandemic should lead to change, advocates have urged.

The report shows between 2019 and 2021, some 24 women died either during pregnancy or up to one year afterwards. Among those, eight died by suicide, and seven of these were during the pandemic years.

The report said this is “of particular concern” and also found five of these seven deaths were less than one year after giving birth.

“Comparison of the rate of suicide deaths in 2019-2021 with the previous decade, 2009-2018, confirmed a statistically significant increase,” the Confidential Maternal Death Enquiry in Ireland Report for 2019-2021 states.

Midwife and maternity advocate with the Elephant Collective Jeannine Webster welcomed the report.

She called for the findings around mental health, potentially linked to maternal isolation, visiting restrictions in maternity hospitals, and other pandemic changes to be analysed.

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“What I would like to see is how that whole movement which occurred here (against the hospital restrictions) feel about this,” she said.

“They knew how it was affecting women and they were ignored.

“How come individual maternity units could do what they wanted to do, basically, and there was no national consensus around ‘this is how we are going to handle pregnancy’.” 

She described the report’s language around this issue as “very striking”, and said: “It’s very sad, really sad.” 

Other causes of death included thromboembolism, ruptured ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous intraperitoneal haemorrhage and a traffic accident.

The maternal death enquiry found no maternal deaths attributed to covid-19 infections despite 38 covid admissions to intensive care of pregnant women in 2020 and 2021.

Clinical director of the HSE National Women and Infants Health Programme Dr Cliona Murphy highlighted this data.

“Likely related to widespread vaccination, prioritisation of pregnant women for vaccines and a responsive healthcare workforce,” she posted on social media.

The report also shows 65 maternal deaths between 2009 and 2021.

While non-Irish women accounted for 23.7% of pregnancies in that time, the MDE identified among deaths that “31% occurred in women born outside of Ireland”.

The report states that: "Such a finding suggests an over-representation of non-Irish women among maternal deaths in Ireland."

Maternal Death Enquiry Ireland is based in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre in Cork and is HSE-funded.