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Why do more pregnant Americans commit suicide?

SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
That's not how "pregnancy-related" is calculated in the US. As the source link notes, deaths occuring up to 1 year after giving birth can be considered pregnancy-related.
- EA-3167 1y ago
  That's... incredibly unhelpful, although I suppose it explains why the US has more of these deaths than other countries: accounting practices.
  - ty6853 1y ago
    The US has some of the highest levels of public health research (NIH) and science funding (NSF). And despite not having universal healthcare, we have I think the highest government funded health care spending in the world (~8% of GDP or ~2 Trillion). Part of the way to gain this funding is to label things 'associated' or 'related' in order to trigger a funding grab for your particular field of interest. NIH and NSF funding is mostly adversarial, for the most part the pot is fixed and you can win by making your case more dire than the other guy. Thus you have weird stuff like anything remotely having a connection to COVID or pregnancy getting tagged in to influence the purse strings.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    One would hope any study comparing statistics between countries would normalize for differences in thresholds and time frames. But maybe not?
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      It's a systemic problem. The people crunching the numbers want to leave open the door to future research. If they ask X and crunch numbers and get answer Y but think it could be explained by Z they'll just leave it at Y and make Z it's own follow up so then can get credit for two rather than one. The people summarizing it for mass market consumption have every incentive to go with the most outrageous interpretations of Y because that's what grabs eyeballs and that's how they get paid. And this is before you account for all the bad actors who'll willfully make little "oversights" like not correcting for stats across countries because they or their backers or colleagues they're trying to curry favor with have an axe to grind and want to see a particular result.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  No, it doesn't, at all: > within 1 year of the end of pregnancy from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy We have you here saying "If you overdose on recreational drugs a year after giving birth that's considered pregnancy-related" - no it's not. Just as elsewhere someone is claiming "If you die in a car accident six months after giving birth, that's pregnancy-related". Too many people think they have these "gotcha" moments that they think have uncovered some ideological agenda in this data, but in reality, it only uncovers their own agenda. The same was true a few years ago - "if you fall down the stairs and die a year after having COVID, that will be counted as a COVID death". Again, no, it won't.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    The source article says that "mental and behavior disorders and drug and alcohol induced death contributed to 21.2% of late maternal deaths". It seems clear that at least some drug overdoses are being counted in the late maternal deaths subcategory. (The article also says "homicide, suicide, and drug overdose are the leading causes of pregnancy-associated death", although they do take care to note that pregnancy-associated is a broader category which statistics don't typically include.)
ty6853 1y ago
How do you know it's not the other way around -- more suicidal people become pregnant? I would not be surprised if you plan to kill yourself (or too high to care) you might not use protection and fuck freely. What would be the point in preventing pregnancy if you didn't plan on living anyway?

That's not how "pregnancy-related" is calculated in the US. As the source link notes, deaths occuring up to 1 year after giving birth can be considered pregnancy-related.

EA-3167 1y ago
That's... incredibly unhelpful, although I suppose it explains why the US has more of these deaths than other countries: accounting practices.
- ty6853 1y ago
  The US has some of the highest levels of public health research (NIH) and science funding (NSF). And despite not having universal healthcare, we have I think the highest government funded health care spending in the world (~8% of GDP or ~2 Trillion). Part of the way to gain this funding is to label things 'associated' or 'related' in order to trigger a funding grab for your particular field of interest. NIH and NSF funding is mostly adversarial, for the most part the pot is fixed and you can win by making your case more dire than the other guy. Thus you have weird stuff like anything remotely having a connection to COVID or pregnancy getting tagged in to influence the purse strings.
- mrandish 1y ago
  One would hope any study comparing statistics between countries would normalize for differences in thresholds and time frames. But maybe not?
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    It's a systemic problem. The people crunching the numbers want to leave open the door to future research. If they ask X and crunch numbers and get answer Y but think it could be explained by Z they'll just leave it at Y and make Z it's own follow up so then can get credit for two rather than one. The people summarizing it for mass market consumption have every incentive to go with the most outrageous interpretations of Y because that's what grabs eyeballs and that's how they get paid. And this is before you account for all the bad actors who'll willfully make little "oversights" like not correcting for stats across countries because they or their backers or colleagues they're trying to curry favor with have an axe to grind and want to see a particular result.
FireBeyond 1y ago
No, it doesn't, at all: > within 1 year of the end of pregnancy from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy We have you here saying "If you overdose on recreational drugs a year after giving birth that's considered pregnancy-related" - no it's not. Just as elsewhere someone is claiming "If you die in a car accident six months after giving birth, that's pregnancy-related". Too many people think they have these "gotcha" moments that they think have uncovered some ideological agenda in this data, but in reality, it only uncovers their own agenda. The same was true a few years ago - "if you fall down the stairs and die a year after having COVID, that will be counted as a COVID death". Again, no, it won't.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  The source article says that "mental and behavior disorders and drug and alcohol induced death contributed to 21.2% of late maternal deaths". It seems clear that at least some drug overdoses are being counted in the late maternal deaths subcategory. (The article also says "homicide, suicide, and drug overdose are the leading causes of pregnancy-associated death", although they do take care to note that pregnancy-associated is a broader category which statistics don't typically include.)

ty6853 1y ago

How do you know it's not the other way around -- more suicidal people become pregnant? I would not be surprised if you plan to kill yourself (or too high to care) you might not use protection and fuck freely. What would be the point in preventing pregnancy if you didn't plan on living anyway?