[Suicidal crises at the time of motherhood]

In collective imagination, motherhood cannot be but a source of joy and self-fulfilment for a woman. Nevertheless, we are reminded by the frequency and/or the severity of some psychic troubles during pregnancy and postpartum that such a phase, so specific in the psycho-affective development of the woman, can be a challenge for the woman going through it, some women will go as far as contemplating death after having given life. In the 2000 consensus conference on the suicidal crisis, there is not a single chapter though devoted to suicide problems amongst women becoming mothers, It is true that suicide at motherhood is not so frequent as during other times in a woman's life. Nevertheless, it is a not so negligible contributor to mothers' mortality at the times of pregnancy and post delivery, being even, according to some authors, the main cause of mothers' mortality. A better knowledge of epidemiology of suicidal crisis at the time of motherhood, of its precipitating and preparing factors, seems to be required so that preventive measures can be taken for the benefit of the personnel--either psychiatrists, obstetricians or midwives--in charge of those suicidal women. The British and Australian authors seem to be particularly involved in the prevention of such an event "above all dramatic" which, as unfrequent as it may be, cannot leave us indifferent.