Mental health link to one-in-four new mother deaths

The report – Saving lives, Improving Mothers’ Care, by maternal research group MBRRACE – analysed maternal deaths between 2011 and 2013 and found that one in four of those between six weeks and a year after giving birth were linked to mental health issues.

In addition, the research found that one in seven who died over this period were as a result of suicide, while mental health problems were instrumental in the deaths of one in 11 new mothers within the first six weeks of giving birth.

The findings have prompted calls from child and family health experts for the government to reverse its planned £200m of cuts to public health budgets next year because of the damage it could cause to support for new mothers.

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health president Professor Neena Modi, said: “To support women, and subsequently their children, we must ensure every family has access to health visiting services.

“Health visitors are ideally placed to identify early signs of maternal mental ill-health.

“If this [£200m funding cut] goes ahead, health visiting will be placed under immense strain, adding to the current crisis facing public health and the NHS’s financial burden in the long term.”

The MBRRACE report urges the government to invest in efforts to target and support women with mental health problems, in particular through specialist outreach services. Emergency and out-of-hours care also needs to be available for pregnant and postnatal women at risk of a mental health crisis.

Such specialist outreach support should also be available to women with substance misuse issues, says the report, which also calls for better training among mental health specialists to spot mental health problems after birth.

Research leader Professor Marian Knight said: “Although severe maternal mental illness is uncommon, it can develop very quickly in women after birth and the woman, her family and mainstream mental health services may not recognise this or move fast enough to take action.”

While the report found a fall in deaths among new mothers due to direct causes, such as pregnancy complications, the rate of indirect deaths, such as those due to medical and mental health problems, remained steady between 2011 and 2013.

Earlier this week the Institute of Health Visitors’ 2015 State of Health Visiting survey found that long-term under-resourcing of the profession and heavy workloads were preventing many health visitors from meeting government recommendations to carry out mental health assessments with new mothers.