Prenatal Psychiatric Disorders Linked to Increased Risk of Suicide Attempts During and After Pregnancy

According to a recent study published in HCP Live, Personality issues, adjustment disorders, bipolar illness, insomnia, and anxiety disorders were all considered risk factors for postpartum depression. There is a shortage of information on the elements that lead to an increase in postpartum suicide ideation and behavior.  

Previously accounting for between 5 and 15% of maternal mortality, suicide has become the leading cause of death among mothers worldwide. Medical and mental health history, age, alcohol and cigarette use, and pregnancy difficulties were all potential hazards.  

The researchers were primarily interested in two outcomes: the percentage of women admitted to the hospital within the first year after giving birth who were diagnosed with depression or had attempted suicide and the percentage of women readmitted for delivery and diagnosed with depression or suicide attempts during the same hospital stay.  

A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to assess each variable’s relative incidence and identify risk factors. Pregnant women made up 804,017 of the 39.9 million hospitalized patients. The average mother age at the hospitals participating in the research was 33.

There were 1202 suicide attempts among pregnant women in hospitals, with another 111 women being readmitted within a year after their first attempt. During and soon after pregnancy, when women experience both acute and chronic sleep loss, the biological window of increased risk for depression in women is wide open.  

Despite more excellent knowledge and suggested universal screening for perinatal depression, most women, families, and doctors continue to assume that the perinatal brain can heal from mental illness while toxically sleep deprived. We have great hopes for therapeutic and pharmacological remedies because we believe they will solve the problem looming over us for so long.  

The biggest issue here is the requirement to feed a baby at night. As per the Washington Post, standard postpartum depression treatment should be effective whether the woman is depressed, to begin with, or her child begins sleeping for four to six-hour periods. Suppose one wants to induce or perpetuate mental disease in a woman at high risk of postpartum depression or is already depressed.

In that case, they might apply a simple formula of nighttime wakeups every hour to three hours for weeks. Brexanolone, the first FDA-approved medicine for postpartum depression, has shown potential in research. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled research on postpartum depression, participants were advised to stop nursing for seven days and be hospitalized for an intravenous infusion.  

The ladies were divided into two groups: those who took brexanolone and those who received a placebo. All of these infants must have been cared for by loving parents or caretakers who worked out how to care for a baby on their overnight. There’s a reason for brexanolone’s fame: the medicine effectively alleviated depression in 72 percent of women within 60 hours, and the effects persisted for another 30 days.  

After 30 days, 45% of women in the treatment group reported that their depression had improved, while 55% of women in the placebo group reported that theirs had improved, all as a result of getting a good night’s sleep and returning home to a family who had figured out how to feed the baby without her.  

The conclusion is that everyone in society must emphasize mothers’ need for proper rest. In the United States, untreated postpartum depression costs $32,000 per mother and child and is a primary cause of maternal death after childbirth. Nighttime care, paid leave, and other types of assistance for single parents are far more affordable, and people should prioritize that as a society.