Suicide leading cause of death during pregnancy for wāhine Māori

Friday, 29 April 2022

The leading cause of death for women who are pregnant or who have just given birth in Aotearoa is suicide. (Video first published April 14, 2022.)

A newly released report by the Helen Clark Foundation Mahi a Rongo reveals suicide as the leading cause of death during pregnancy in Aotearoa.

The report, Āhurutia Te Rito | It takes a village, identifies the stress factors contributing to poor mental health among new and expectant parents in Aotearoa, and how public policy can be used to alleviate these stressors and support parents.

Primarily, the analysis found that better support for perinatal mental health would be transformational for whānau and communities in Aotearoa; that perinatal distress in Aotearoa is widespread, complex and linked to systemic inequities; and that making sure parents and whānau have access to support is the best way to protect perinatal mental health, and contributes directly to wider whānau wellbeing.

The report suggests priorities for politicians and those designing the new health system. It identifies immediate opportunities to help meet current and likely future perinatal and maternal mental health needs.

Since 2006, more than half of the hāpu or new mothers who died by suicide have been Māori. (Image description: illustration of a brown-skinned woman with her hands on a pregnant belly. The woman has long black hair and is wearing a red top and a pikorua around her neck.)

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Hāpai Te Hauora chief executive Selah Hart says that for the last 16 years, “more than half of the pregnant or new mothers who died by suicide have been Māori”.

Hāpai Te Hauora chief executive Selah Hart supports the recommendations made in the report and urges politicians to make improvements. (Image description: Selah Hart, a wahine Māori, looks away from the camera and leans against a stone wall. They have their hair slicked back in a bun and wears a black top and blazer with a gold necklace.)

Hart supports recommendations made within the report to make maternal mental health a priority in the new health system reforms and hopefully save lives.

“This needs to be addressed and shows a lack of protection under Te Tiriti for our mothers and birthing parents.”

“The recommendations include funding the new Māori Health Authority to hold the budget required to address these preventable details, and enable a for Māori, to Māori, by Māori commissioning approach, alongside the expansion of kaupapa Māori programmes with a particular focus on improving whānau wellbeing during the perinatal period,” Hart said.

“Some immediate solutions that the Government could provide include extending parental leave to all parents which would enable whānau to build a strong bond and connection in the most critical time of a newborn’s life, and also understanding the huge impact other social determinates have on whānau, such as the ongoing shortages in public housing.”

According to the report, perinatal distress is more common for Māori, Pacific and Asian birthing parents, but in all cases, Māori were more likely to experience symptoms than non-Māori.

'Kaupapa Māori organisations have worked for years on the front lines to address this crisis and the issues the report raises are, sadly, all too familiar,' Hart said and she urged politicians to listen and make changes.

Zoe Hawke is the chief executive of E Tipu E Rea Whānau Services, a kaupapa Māori health and social service supporting young parents between the ages of about 13 to 26, hapū (pregnant) māmā and their pēpi.

She said that discrimination and stigma towards young hāpu māmā is “a major contributing factor to mental distress for wāhine Māori, whether that be in the education system, employment, housing or simply going to do the grocery shopping”. For instance, young hāpu māmā need to show a card from the Ministry for Social Development to spend money at the shops.

“They tend to just hide in their homes, or in the car … and that does contribute massively to really poor mental health,” Hawke said.

“Once upon a time, pregnancy was seen as something beautiful – adding to the hapū, adding to the iwi, bringing extra strength to the whānau … Today, there’s a strong story told to these young people about shame … and they feel it intensely.”

As an example, Hawke spoke of a 16-year-old young woman who, when she went to her first scan, was told by staff that it was “good news” because it didn’t look like her foetus would survive.

Hawke believes that a combination of legislative improvements and change on the ground in society will enable a change in the mental wellbeing of wāhine Māori when they are pregnant.