Reducing perinatal mental health mortality: A call to action

The mortality rate of women related to pregnancy is shockingly high. And despite well-intentioned initiatives, it’s not improving. A different approach is needed.

In the Uk in the period of 2021-23, 257 women died during or up to six weeks after pregnancy among 2,004,184 women giving birth in the UK. That’s 12.82 women per 100,000 (see the 2025 MBBRACE report for full details). That’s more than 10 times the 2025 homicide rate of London! Yet for some reason, the UK press and public opinion seems to be far more concerned about crime (even though it’s at a historic low point) rather than the health of our courageous mothers, which is actually declining! In particular, the number of women who died went up by 16 compared to the period of 2019-2021, even though the number of births went down by 62,813 women giving birth. The mortality rate went up from 11.7 to 12.8 per 100,000, an increase of 9.4% in only 2 years!.

A major contributor to perinatal and postpartum mortality is poor maternal mental health. A whopping 48% of the women who died had recorded mental health issues, and 10% of the deaths were considered to be primarily caused by poor mental health. That makes mental health the second biggest cause of death, after cardiac disease and blood clots. Looking at the post-partum stage that follows the perinatal stage, the 2025 MBBRACE report says “Maternal suicides were the leading cause of deaths occurring between six weeks and one year after the end of pregnancy. As a whole, deaths from psychiatric causes accounted for 34% of maternal deaths during this period”.

All of this is shocking, and we shouldn’t just accept it.

The UK government set itself a target in 2023 to halve the number of maternal deaths. Instead, if anything, things have got worse.

How can we reduce the mortality rate in the perinatal and postpartum phase for women with mental health issues? In particular given that the NHS being under so much pressure? The MBBRACE report recommends that women with mental health issues who are pregnant, recently pregnant or who have experienced the loss of a child through pregnancy loss, bereavement or custody loss, should receive a referral to the perinatal mental health team (PMHT). However, more referrals to specialist resource means a higher burden on the NHS, when what is needed is action that reduces it. In fact, a Jan 2026 report by the National Childbirth Trust said that postnatal care in the UK is “dangerously underfunded and understaffed”.

BLUESKEYE AI is of the opinion that there’s a long-overdue role for technology here. Blueskeye has developed an app called TrueBlue, with an integrated objective depression severity measure, which can be used in a number of ways to reduce mortality, in ways that actually potentially save the NHS money. Women in the perinatal or postpartum phase would download it, and complete an interactive task once or twice a week. The tasks are engaging interactions with a virtual assistant, either reading out loud a children’s story or by recording a gratitude diary. The TrueBlue app promises to:

• Detect deteriorating depression early, and could refer to either ways of self-help when severity is low, or explain what NHS actions are possible if severity is higher

• Monitor progression of depression after a treatment has started, to see if it’s working and if not, trigger a change in treatment plan earlier than is currently possible.

Both the early detection and determining the efficacy of ongoing treatment mean that depression can be stopped in its tracks early on, preventing severe cases and hopefully preventing maternal suicides. It would also make treatment simpler, by reducing the number of complex cases and therefore the need for specialist intervention.

TrueBlue is currently in the late stages of its first clinical trial with the Nottinghamshire NHS. Whilst I can’t discuss the actual data from the trial until it’s completed, I’m very pleased with the progress based on the information that does get reported to us by the study team.

TrueBlue was developed with the input of healthcare professionals and people with lived experience. Given the success of the trial, we are now at a stage where we want to widen our engagement with stakeholders in maternal, perinatal and postpartum mental health. If you are someone with lived experience, or a midwife, or work in a perinatal mental health team, we would really like talk to talk to you to hear how you think prevention can be achieved, and if there’s any role for a solution like TrueBlue.

Is this you? And do you want to learn more about TrueBlue and Blueskeye’s efforts to reduce the impact of perinatal mental health? Get in touch with me!