Maternal Deaths from Mental Health Conditions: An Urgent Call to Action
- rajaduttamd
- Sep 11, 2025
- 2 min read
The 2025 MBRRACE-UK report shines a stark light on the enduring toll of mental health conditions in pregnancy and the postnatal year. Between 2021–2023, 155 women in the UK and Ireland died from psychiatric causes—a rate of 7.14 per 100,000 maternities. Strikingly, the vast majority (121 deaths) occurred not during pregnancy itself, but in the fragile months six weeks to one year after birth.
Suicide has now become the leading cause of late maternal death. Eighty-eight women died by suicide during or after pregnancy in this triennium—a rate significantly higher than in 2017–19. These deaths were often violent in nature, echoing the profound distress and isolation mothers can experience. Alongside this, 67 women died from substance use—a figure that has not declined despite growing awareness.
Behind the statistics lies a deeper pattern: disadvantage. Almost half of women who died by suicide, and more than half of those who died from substance use, came from the most deprived areas. Many lived with domestic abuse, child protection involvement, unstable housing, or a history of trauma. For some, the loss of a child—through miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, or removal into care—was a devastating turning point, escalating the risk of suicide.
The report emphasises that while specialist perinatal mental health services (PMHTs) have expanded, gaps in care persist, particularly for women with co-existing substance use or multiple disadvantages. Too often, signs of escalating risk—previous attempts, violent self-harm, or expressions of hopelessness—were not met with sustained or specialist intervention.
The lessons are clear: pregnancy and the year after birth remain a time of heightened vulnerability. Risk assessments must extend well beyond delivery, with urgent attention to social as well as medical risk factors. The voices in this report remind us that mothers need not only medical care, but also compassion, stability, and coordinated support when facing loss, trauma, or disadvantage.
As the authors conclude, every maternal death from mental health causes is a tragedy—but also an opportunity to build systems that listen, respond, and protect mothers in their most vulnerable moments.
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