Lower birth weight of offspring born after self-poisoning of parent

Abstract

Birth weight was evaluated in 777 and 217 livebirths, respectively, of index females and female partners of index males born before and after severe self-poisoning with drugs. Birth weight was also evaluated in matched controls. Babies born to index females months or years after an attempted self-poisoning were found to have a lower birth weight than before this suicide attempt. The difference in the birth weight of subsequent pregnancies of index and control females was also highly significant. A similar trend was observed in livebirths of female partners of index males. However, the differences were not significant between previous and subsequent pregnancies and between index cases and matched controls.