Association of maternal, antenatal and perinatal complications with suicide in adolescence and young adulthood.

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether maternal, antenatal and perinatal complications are associated with adolescent or young adulthood suicide in offspring. Cases consisted of individuals, aged 15-22 years, born in New York City and committing suicide in New York City between 1985 and 1991 (n = 189). Two controls were selected for each case, constituting the hospital birth immediately preceding and following that of the case, matched with the case with regard to sex and ethnicity. Cases were compared with controls using an index that summed a range of maternal, antenatal and perinatal complications and also with regard to the frequency of individual complications. In the total sample, cases and controls did not differ either in the mean number of all complications combined or in the proportions with specific complications. This lack of association between complications and outcome also obtained in separate analyses by sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status and age at suicide. These results fail to replicate the findings of two previous reports implicating maternal, antenatal and perinatal complications in risk of youth suicide. At present, epidemiological evidence that adverse reproductive events increase the risk for suicide in offspring remains inconclusive.