An RNZ headline reads:
High rate of suicide in pregnant and post-natal women
"Suicide is the leading cause of death during pregnancy and the postnatal period, and Māori women are three times more likely to die this way, a new report has found."
That's an alarming fact and one that somewhat surprised me.
Any suicide is a terrible tragedy but perhaps even more so when it involves an unborn child.
After a moment's reflection, my analytical mind immediately wants to know, how many?
The report is from the Helen Clark Foundation and while the assertion is made and referred to several times in the paper, no statistics are provided. The claim is referenced though and takes us to this source - the maternal section of Perinatal Mortality Review report.
In the thirteen years that span 2006 to 2018 there were 30 suicides or two annually on average.
There were 809,831 maternities in the same period. Maternal suicides are in fact very rare.
But rarity doesn't make for headlines.
Furthermore, there were 27 in the period 2006 to 2016, leaving three in 2017/ 2018.
Maternal suicides are reducing.
For context 65 young people under twenty took their lives in the year to June 2020.
Update: On TV One the maternal suicide number has grown to 10 every year.
7 comments:
What about the "leading cause of death". If that is true, then your conclusion is that very few women die during pregnancy from any causes.
Strictly speaking a maternal death (including suicide) is "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy (miscarriage, termination or birth)"
126 such deaths over 13 years. 9-10 annually.
Lindsay do those figures include `Death by Accident' or just medical and suicide?
I ask because I am sure a few pregnant women andnew mothers will have died in Motor Vehicle and other accidents in that time frame.
Medical and suicide. You can see the various causes at the link (maternal section) table 5.4
This government and current media, consistently lie and exaggerate with impunity- it’s despicable. I’m not sure we can do anything about it, but thank you for trying. I no longer trust anything our media says- I’d like to say report but it’s not reporting as that requires in depth and unbiased research and investigation.
Call me Cynical, but when statistics start getting manipulated like this, someone is looking to clip the ticket.
Helen is secretly a Dark Sith Lord, she pushes a nefarious hidden agenda, not to the benefit of mere people. Using suicide statistics to push a political agenda should be an instant ticket to the wilderness. Not to mention ACT's signature suicide policy. Then there's NZ's codifiying abortion upto birth. Our politicians are broadly Eugenic.
"The Possessed" by Dostoevesky is a gigantic book, but is a commentry on the suicide of a nation. He forecasts Russia's plunge into Communistic Suicide. The people could not understand the increase in suicide in the young, but the book explains: Nihilism.
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