Suicide the leading cause of late maternal deaths, report finds

Aolish Gormley leads a campaign calling for one year of access to perinatal mental health supports after giving birth rather than the current six to eight-week period. Picture: James Connolly

Suicide was the leading cause of late maternal deaths in Ireland between 2022 and 2024, with seven women dying by suicide within a year of giving birth, new figures show.

A late maternal death is the death of a woman from any cause occurring between 42 days and one year after the end of a pregnancy.

The Maternal Death Enquiry (MDE) Ireland also reported a "statistically significant increase" in suicides among pregnant women and women up to a year after childbirth during the period 2019-2024 compared with 2009-2018.

Overall, 21 women died within a year of giving birth between 2022 and 2024, according to the latest MDE report, which was signed by MDE chairman Richard Greene.

The report found "suicide remains the leading cause of late maternal deaths in Ireland".

Of the 21 women who died within a year of giving birth between 2022 and 2024, seven died by suicide. Other causes included five deaths linked to drug or alcohol misuse, two linked to pulmonary embolism, two to heart disease, and two to cancer. 

Two deaths required an autopsy, while one death was classified as a coincidental cancer.

The MDE said there had been "a statistically significant increase in deaths due to suicide during pregnancy and up to one year postnatally" between 2019 and 2024 compared with the previous decade.

The report also examined maternal deaths occurring during pregnancy or within 42 days of giving birth.

It found 16 women died among 159,301 maternities between 2022 and 2024, equivalent to a maternal mortality rate of 10 per 100,000 maternities, which the MDE said was comparable with the latest UK figures.

Among those 16 deaths, two women died by suicide, three deaths were linked to haemorrhage, three to heart disease, three to neurological conditions, and two to thrombosis.

The MDE said: “There was no statistically significant difference in maternal mortality rates over the 16 reporting years of the maternal death enquiry in Ireland.” 

Aolish Gormley leads a campaign calling for one year of access to perinatal mental health supports after giving birth rather than the current six to eight-week period.

"The evidence is very, very clear that six weeks of postnatal care is not enough if there’s mothers struggling beyond that point, and there definitely is," she said. 

Ms Gormley said the recent MAMMI study showed depression and anxiety rising in the 12 months after birth compared to pregnancy.

She acknowledged Government statistics might view seven as a low figure in context of other groups in society affected by deaths by suicide. “But seven mothers is seven women, seven families, seven children who lost their mother,” she said.

“I feel very passionately about this. We can’t look at statistics as just cold numbers, we have to think of communities around those people who are affected. Every life lost is important, whether that is seven or 70 together.” 

Ms Gormley said women regularly contacted her with distressing experiences of perinatal mental health appointments delayed for months at a time.

She welcomed the growing number of postnatal hubs around the country, but called for the care to be available for up to a year if women require this.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.