Adverse factors during pregnancy can affect child’s suicide risk: study

Child suicide risk linked to parent's education, poverty, teen pregnancy

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A comprehensive study published in The Lancet has identified a link between adverse In Utero (in-womb) conditions and a child’s risk of suicide in later years. 

In “In-utero and perinatal influences on suicide risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis”, researchers pored over data from existing studies in the United Kingdom, concluding that the link between pre-natal conditions and post-birth suicidal tendencies exists. However, the exact mechanisms that connect pre-natal conditions to suicidal thoughts in later life, are not yet known.

This research adds to our understanding of mental health and the environmental factors that influence it. Worryingly, the study highlighted insufficient data on suicide risk factors such as ideation, which could have added to the depth of their findings.

The researchers examined data from the United Kingdom, identifying studies that had low bias and that were published in peer-reviewed journals, so as to create a comprehensive meta-analysis. Some of the factors they identified as being linked to suicide-risk included: 

Familial characteristics such as high birth order (for example, being a fourth-born child), having a teenage mother, having a single mother, as well as socioeconomic factors like low maternal or paternal levels of education, low birthweight and small gestational age, were all associated with a higher suicide risk.

Some of these factors been studied in isolation in other countries — a 2014 study conducted in Sweden and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found an 18 percent higher suicide risk with each increase in birth order. A 1985 Lancet study (“Relationship of maternal and perinatal conditions to eventual adolescent suicide”) also found a link between respiratory distress at birth and later suicide risk, as well as with factors like chronic disease in the mother during pregnancy and a lack of antenatal care.

In 2019, the global suicide rate fell by 33 percent. Almost 44 percent of suicide cases since the 1990s took place in India and in China.