But within hours of a long and difficult labour, Emily had a psychotic episode for the first time. Nine months later, she ended her life.

One birth in 1000 triggers a psychotic episode, according to Craig. He spent months researching the condition immediately after losing Emily and was trying to come to terms with how his life had unravelled so unexpectedly.

About 10 days after giving birth, Emily was in the ACT mental health system. She became progressively more depressed and suicidal and was seeing the psychiatrist about once every two to four weeks.

Emily was seen by a psychiatrist the day before she committed suicide.

Craig said she had been told the reason why her mood changed throughout the day was because of hormones and that she would feel more depressed in the morning.

''I had an explanation to why it changes across the day,'' said Craig, who asked for his surname to be withheld from this report.

''The next morning I had the car booked in for a service and I got up to drop it off. But the appointment was half an hour later. I wondered what I should do - go home, drop the car off, or do I wait? So I waited. When I got home she had completed suicide.

''That's a simple failure of supervision on my part. If they'd actually said to me 'hey, you can't go out in the morning, you have to stay until this time of the day', I would have then restructured my day to make sure she was supervised at the right time.''

Craig said his son missed his mum dreadfully when she suddenly stopped being there, even though he was only nine months old.

Supportlink chief executive Tony Campbell said families, friends and work colleagues of a person who takes their life commonly lived with significant guilt about not preventing suicide.

Mr Campbell said one of the sad parts of suicide was the lack of support family members caring for the mentally ill received.

''I feel very, very sad for people who have somebody in their family that are clearly at high risk,'' Mr Campbell said.

''There's little real support for families, yet they're the ones expected to do the caring, being a 24/7 supervisor to their loved one.''

Craig spent the majority of his waking hours with Emily. He had to provide care, be a patient advocate and make sure Emily got the right treatment.

While Emily was in the mental health system, Craig says he wasn't supported by professionals in the system to make sure he knew what he was doing.

''They probably gave her the appropriate medical care, the care they allowed me to provide was hopeless,'' Craig said.

''Living with someone who is depressed is really, really hard and sometimes you just want to shout at them.

''How do you deal with that, how do you find strategies to help them get through their day?''