Suicide and pregnancy

Pregnancy is a protective factor

Pregnancy is a protective factor as regards the risk of suicide. Suicide does occur in pregnancy, but far less commonly than in non-pregnant women. Pregnancy reduces the overall risk of suicide compared with a population that is not pregnant. During the years 1973 - 1984, there were only 14 such suicides in the whole of England and Wales; this included suicides up to one year of delivery. (A suicide rate of 1.9 per million births). In these cases, the victims were psychiatrically ill at the time of their death, with schizophrenia and alcohol dependence being important risk factors.
British Medical Journal, 1991. Vol 203, Pages 126 - 127

Furthermore it has been shown that if the woman is suicidal in pregnancy, she is more likely to respond to proper psychiatric treatment than she is by having an abortion, which increases her depression and also increases the risk of severe post abortion psychosis.
Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa 1989, Vol 14, Pages 506 - 516

In 1992 Prof. of Psychiatry Patricia Casey, University College Dublin, stated that pregnancy reduces the risk of suicide in women by a factor of six.

This has been confirmed over and over again in studies in the U.K., the U.S and most recently in Finland. In a study in the U.S. the estimated suicide rate for pregnant women is 0.6 per 100,000 compared to 3.5 per 100,000 for non-pregnant women and 16 per 100,000 for men. A study in the U.S. found that the number of suicides of pregnant women was only one third of that expected.

Suicidal thoughts

Suicidal thoughts are relatively common in normal adolescent girls occurring in up to 16.5% while in girls referred for psychiatric treatment suicidal thoughts occurred in 36%. Actual suicide rates for teenage girls were 0.0003% for those aged 10-14 and 0.0034% for those aged 15-19 years. Prediction of suicide is at the basis of the decisions in Irish Courts relating to abortion.

Numerous studies have attempted to predict suicide in high risk populations. The most thorough assessment showed that the prediction of suicide was wrong 97 times out of 100. There is no literature on the association between threats and completion of the act since threats are so common and completed suicide is so rare. Thus, extrapolating clinically or statistically from threats to complete suicide would be impossible.

All studies on suicide concur that depression is the most closely associated factor with suicide. Depression should be looked for and treated in any pregnant woman with suicidal ideation.

Not an indication for abortion

Threat of suicide is not an indication for abortion, since the woman is more likely to commit suicide if she has an abortion than if she continues her pregnancy to term. Only in a world gone mad would society allow psychosocial problems such as crisis pregnancy to be dealt with by recourse to surgery or abortifacient medication.

A supportive environment is the most important thing to provide a woman in this unfortunate situation. In countries such as Ireland which has a strongly pro-life ethos, women who abort their pregnancies are far more likely to develop severe or prolonged psychological or psychiatric problems. This risk is increased if the woman is young or if she is pressured into aborting her pregnancy, which is usually the case.