Medical admissions following self-harm in the perinatal period.

Maternal deaths have been comprehensively studied in the UK for over 50 years. Psychiatric causes of maternal morbidity remain persistently high – during 2019-21 almost 56% of the women who died during the antenatal period had a mental illness and almost 10% of maternal deaths during the postnatal period were from mental-health related causes (Lewis 2011, Knight, Kenyon et al. 2014). In developed countries such as the UK, where maternal deaths are rare, it is becoming increasingly recognised that studying near-misses (or severe life-threatening complications not resulting in death) can provide important additional information about the processes, or lack of, in place for recognising and responding to clinical deterioration.
Maternal near-misses have not previously been investigated among women with severe mental illness and little is known about this group. The aims of this study are two-fold: 1) to determine the prevalence and characteristics of maternal acute medical admissions following self-harm in a population of women with severe perinatal mental illness 2) to examine differences in rates of acute medical admissions for self-harm between women with and without a contact with secondary mental health services during the perinatal period.