The mental health of a pregnant woman, especially those who suffer from mental illnesses that require specialist care, may face greater complications to their health and during childbirth, a recent study suggests.
According to a new study from King’s College London, pregnant women with serious mental illnesses could be at higher risk of ‘near-miss’ life-threatening obstetric complications including kidney failure, heart attacks and embolism during childbirth.
Pregnant Women With Mental Illness Face Life-threatening Effects
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The study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry looked into the results of a data linkage anonymised cohort study that involved over 200,000 women who gave birth between the years 2007 and 2016. Findings revealed the additional physical risks that pregnant women with poor mental health could go through.
Risk of severe, potentially life-threatening, obstetric complications increased by 50 per cent within women with serious mental illnesses. The comparison was made between 888.4 out of 100,000 in women with mental illnesses and 575.1 out of 100,000 pregnant women in the general population.
The highest risks were observed for acute kidney failure, cardiac arrest, heart failure or heart attacks, and obstetric embolism after adjusting for maternal age, ethnicity and social deprivation.
The latest confidential enquiry into maternal deaths that was published recently highlighted that almost all women who have died during childbirth were found to have multiple problems, including pre-existing physical and mental health conditions.
Importance Of Mental Health Of A Pregnant Woman
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Mental illness is said to affect around one in four women during early pregnancy. Women with mental illness requiring psychiatric support were found to be disproportionately affected by a range of poor foetal and maternal outcomes such as premature birth and low birth weight. There is also an increased risk of the mother dying.
This study can provide further information to prevent deaths and other serious conditions by investigating maternal life-threatening obstetric complications as the maternal mortality rate decreases.
“This study sheds important light on the physical and mental health challenges faced by women before, during and after pregnancy. By increasing our understanding of how pre-existing conditions can influence mother and child health outcomes and by not assuming physical symptoms are due to a mental health condition, we can improve outcomes for women with serious mental illnesses,” said lead author of the study Dr Abigail Easter from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London.
Researchers said the evidence found for more health problems and shorter life-expectancies for individuals with mental illnesses is well-documented. Life-expectancy for both men and women suffering from mental illnesses is found to be approximately 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population.
“Effective interventions that target vulnerable groups, including women with severe mental illness, are vital to achieving this goal,” said senior author Professor Louise Howard. “We need to take an integrated approach to prevention and treatment of problems in pregnancy, integrating both physical and mental health.”
She also added, “This should include addressing mental and physical health, and associated social determinants of health such as poverty, domestic violence and other inequalities (currently being exacerbated by the pandemic), at critical life stages, both before conception and during pregnancy.”
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