Abstract
Introduction: The present study aimed to investigate the suicide methods and attempted suicide during pregnancy and its maternal and fetal outcomes. Materials and Methods: This is a five-year retrospective study. The statistical population consisted of pregnant women who had attempted suicide and referred to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Kermanshah on 23.08.2007 till 22.08.2012. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS 16 and chi-square test. Results: Among 16,000 cases of the people who have attempted suicide within the five years, 89 people were pregnant women. The most common method of suicide among pregnant women during the study period was drug poisoning (39 cases, 43.3%), self-immolation (23 cases, 25.6%), poisoning by opium (14 cases, 15.6%), organophosphorus poisoning (11 cases, 12.2%), hanging (1 case, 1.1%) and 1 case of poisoning by oil (1.1%), respectively. Most fetal outcomes were observed in self-immolation. Discussion: The results showed that drug poisoning and self-immolation were more common in the first and third trimesters, respectively. Since suicide is one of the causes of maternal mortality and adverse fetal consequences, it needs more attention as a health and social problem.
Highlights
The present study aimed to investigate the suicide methods and attempted suicide during pregnancy and its maternal and fetal outcomes
Pregnancy can increase a risk for depression, anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms, pregnant women are less likely to die from suicide in this period [7]
Most of the attempted suicide cases occurred in the third decade of life
Summary
The present study aimed to investigate the suicide methods and attempted suicide during pregnancy and its maternal and fetal outcomes. Maternal mortality refers to death occurs during pregnancy and up to 42 days after that (early) or 42 days to one year after delivery (late) [4]. The causes of maternal mortality which occurs one year after delivery include thromboembolism, obesity, cardiovascular events and suicide, respectively [5,6]. Untreated depression during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of suicide, abortion, preterm delivery, preeclampsia, fetal growth retardation [12,13], infant development disorder and conduct disorder in childhood [14,15]. Drug self-poisoning is more common than other methods [1621]
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