to her children; she wasn't hallucinating, and always had an explanation for her behavior.*" "*One morning the younger ones were already out of the house and the older girl was getting ready for school, when Y stormed out in a very emotional state, not taking her purse, not saying anything\--just got into the car and drove off. The child was scared and called her father, and he came home immediately. They started looking for Y and finally found her near where she had jumped to her death. Afterwards, her family thought that the suicide of Y\'s good friend following childbirth some years earlier may have influenced her act.* (Note: Details have been changed to protect confidentiality.)"

Background {#Sec1}
==========

Suicidality encompasses the spectrum from suicidal ideation (thoughts of self-harm) to suicidetaken as the mid-year population of women after birth for each year and group, estimated from the National Birth Registry as those within a year of birth on June 30th of each year. The control group populations were calculated as the difference between the postpartum population and mid-year total population estimates provided by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) for each age and ethnic/immigrant group.

Suicide attempt rates and rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated for the postpartum and control group by year, ethnic group, age, and immigrant status group for the study period. To assess the effect of all characteristics together, a multivariate logistic model was built predicting suicide attempt by postpartum status, age group and ethnic/immigrant group.

### Measure of severity of attempts {#Sec5}

A