Two sobering facts for you: 1) Suicide is the leading cause of maternal death in the period from six weeks to a year after birth, and 2) There are only 22 mother and baby units in the whole of the UK, with not a single one in Northern Ireland.
Perinatal mental illness – a leading complication of pregnancy – is in the news again. Services are crumbling and overstretched, and a postcode lottery means women are often struggling to access treatment, with devastating consequences. The new Labour MP Laura Kyrke-Smith has been speaking movingly about the death by suicide of her friend Sophie, who ended her life 10 weeks after the birth of her third child. Sophie had been suffering from anxiety, especially around her baby’s feeding, and they had spent a night in A&E, but it is unclear whether signs that she was at risk were picked up by professionals. Her friend has been left wondering if, amid all the worry about the baby, anyone asked her mother if she was OK, and what a difference that might have made not only to Sophie, but to the three young daughters she left behind.
