Domestic violence against a pregnant woman

Domestic Violence and Pregnancy | Patient Education

Domestic violence is more common than any other health problem among women during pregnancy. It greatly threatens both the mother's and baby's health. Domestic violence is a pattern of assault and coercive behavior, including physical, sexual and psychological attacks, as well as economic coercion that adults use against their partners.

This includes, but is not limited to, being:

Hit, hurt, pushed
Threatened or made to feel afraid by your partner
Forced to have sex or do something you didn't want to do
Kept from your family, friends or from being in control of your own money

Effects of Domestic Violence During Pregnancy

If you are being hurt or threatened by your partner while you are pregnant, you have a higher chance of:

Injury to your uterus
Miscarriage, stillbirth or premature baby
Getting a dangerous vaginal infection from forced or unprotected sex with someone who has an infection
Increased first and second trimester bleeding

Violence also increases your baby's risk of:

Weighing too little at birth
Having trouble nursing or taking a bottle
Having sleeping problems
Being harder to comfort than other babies
Having problems learning to walk, talk and learn normally
Experiencing lasting emotional trauma
Being physically and sexually abused
Being hurt during a fight

In order to have a healthy pregnancy and baby, you must be free of violence and fear. If you are experiencing domestic violence, it is important that you contact your health care provider for help. There are a variety of community resources available that will help you develop a safety plan for you and your baby.

Community Resources

Living in a Non-Violent Community (LINC) at UCSF
Case management and mental health services for families with children birth to age 18 and community education and training
Phone: (415) 885-7636

SafeStart Support Line
Information, 24-hour support and case management for parents of children under age 6 exposed to violence
Phone: (415) 565-SAVE
(415) 565- 7283

W.O.M.A.N. Inc.
24-hour counseling services, shelter availability and referrals for legal assistance
Phone: (415) 864-4722

La Casa de Las Madres
24-hour counseling and shelter resources, with Spanish speakers available
Phone: (877) 503-1850

Asian Women's Shelter
Counseling, advocacy and shelter resources for the Asian community
Phone: (415) 751-7110

Communities United Against Violence (CUAV)
Advocacy and support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community affected by domestic violence
Phone: (415) 333-HELP
(415) 333-4357

Teen Dating Violence Hotline
24-hour counseling and referrals for teens
Phone: (877) 923-0700

Victim Services
Advocacy service in the criminal justice system through the San Francisco District Attorney's Office
Phone: (415) 553-9044

National Domestic Violence Hotline
24-hour toll-free information and referrals from anywhere in the U. S.
Phone: (800) 799-SAFE
(800) 799-7233

Intimate Partner Violence Endangers Pregnant People and Their Infants

Home > Our Work > Health Justice > Moms & Babies

May 2021

The Problem: Violence against pregnant people inflicts lasting harm on them and their babies

Intimate partner violence (IPV) – also commonly referred to as domestic violence – is endemic in the United States, with nearly one in three women experiencing physical violence by an intimate partner over their lifetime. IPV can also include emotional, sexual, and economic abuse. More than one-third of women report psychological aggression by an intimate partner, and nearly 20 percent report sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime. In addition, financial or economic abuse occurs in 99 percent of cases where other forms of IPV are also present. Early evidence indicates that cases of domestic violence have increased, and become more severe, during the coronavirus pandemic.

IPV negatively affects people’s lives in multiple short- and long-term ways. Current or former intimate partners kill, on average, three women every day, and those who survive IPV often suffer a wide range of physical and mental health problems caused or exacerbated by the violence. These include, for example, physical injuries (including gynecological harm), asthma, gastrointestinal problems, and chronic pain, as well as mental health conditions like anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Additionally, IPV has broader, pervasive effects over the survivor’s lifetime, including, but not limited to: housing instability and homelessness, unemployment, loss or delay of educational opportunities, food insecurity, financial instability, and unwanted entanglement in civil and criminal legal systems.

Pregnancy can often be an especially risky period for IPV, as many women report that abuse started or intensified when they became pregnant. Each year, an estimated 324,000 pregnant people in the United States are battered by their intimate partners. IPV during pregnancy can hurt both maternal and infant health. Furthermore, even though domestic violence is more common among pregnant women than are other conditions for which they are routinely screened – such as gestational diabetes or preeclampsia – few providers screen pregnant patients for abuse.

Intimate Partner Violence Increases Risk of Pregnancy Complications And Poor Health for Moms and Babies

Systematic reviews (rigorous reviews that collect, assess, and synthesize the best available evidence from existing studies) have found:

Women who are abused during pregnancy are more likely to receive no prenatal care or to delay care until later than recommended.
Women experiencing domestic violence during pregnancy are three times more likely to report symptoms of depression in the postnatal period than women who did not experience domestic violence while pregnant.
Maternal exposure to domestic violence is associated with significantly increased risk of low birth weight and preterm birth.
Women who experience IPV during pregnancy are about three times more likely to suffer perinatal death than women who do not experience IPV.

Other individual studies have found that:

63 percent of female homicide victims were killed by an intimate partner, in cases where the victims knew the offender. Homicide is a leading cause of traumatic death for pregnant and postpartum women, accounting for 31 percent of maternal injury deaths.
Infants exposed to IPV can show signs of trauma, including eating problems, sleep disturbances, higher irritability, and delays in development. These harms can be mitigated by the presence of a secure relationship with a safe caregiver.

Black, Indigenous, and Other People of Color Are Disproportionately Harmed by Intimate Partner Violence

Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) people suffer the impact of IPV disproportionately, particularly considering that these communities tend to have less access to the care and resources that would prevent, mitigate, and remedy the effects of IPV. Available reported data appears to indicate a higher rate of IPV in some BIPOC communities. However, those statistics must be understood in their broader context, including the impact of socioeconomic deprivation, the effects of interpersonal and systemic racism, the over-policing of many of these communities, and that people with more resources are often able to keep IPV a “private matter” under the radar of authorities. What is clear is that whatever the actual prevalence of IPV among BIPOC people, its harm is compounded by the inequities survivors face in accessing health care and other economic and social supports they need for themselves and their families.

45 percent of Black women report physical violence, sexual violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, which is almost 20 percent higher than the rate reported by non-Hispanic white women.
48 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native women, report physical violence, sexual violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, which is more than 25 percent higher than the rate reported by non-Hispanic white women.
Compared to their white counterparts, Black women survivors of IPV have higher rates of depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation or suicide attempts.
Research also indicates that factors related to socioeconomic and immigrant status negatively impact survivors’ physical and mental health outcomes.
Black and Latina survivors are less likely to seek physical or behavioral health care for their IPV injuries, compared with white survivors. Reasons for not seeking care include lack of insurance coverage or affordable health care, distrust of providers, historical and ongoing racism and trauma, fear of discrimination, and barriers due to immigration status.

Recommendations:

Federal and state level decisionmakers should require and provide resources for both individual and institutional health care providers to consistently screen all pregnant and postpartum people for intimate partner violence, receive training on providing trauma-informed care, and offer warm referrals to community-based, culturally and linguistically appropriate services for people that need them.
Federal and state level decisionmakers should require all health care provider institutions and organizations to develop and implement institution-wide, survivor- centered, trauma-informed protocols for assessing and responding to IPV, both among their staff and their patients.
Congress should reauthorize, expand, and increase funding for the Violence Against Women Act and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act to better meet the needs of survivors, especially those from communities affected by structural racism and other inequities.

Domestic violence against pregnant mothers was linked to the deterioration of the intelligence of their children

British scientists found that domestic violence against a pregnant woman is associated with a deterioration in the mental abilities of her child. Children whose mothers were abused had an IQ that was 3 to 5 percent below normal. At the same time, indicators suffered more from physical abuse of the mother than from psychological abuse, scientists write in the journal Wellcome Open Research .

Partner violence is still widespread even in developed countries. At least as far back as 2013, the WHO reported that 23 percent of women in high-income countries experienced violence. If a woman is pregnant, then not only she herself suffers, but also her child. It is known, for example, that stress during pregnancy can lead to a variety of consequences for the fetus - from preterm birth to neurological abnormalities. However, there is little research on how violence against a mother during pregnancy is related to the cognitive abilities of her child.

A team of scientists led by Richard Emsley of King's College London set out to estimate how many British women are being abused and to see how it affects the intelligence of their children.

Scientists worked with data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Of the 14,000 women who were pregnant in 1990–1992, 3,153 were selected who gave birth to one child, provided information about domestic violence, and agreed to have a child under 18 examined. The researchers assessed the level of intelligence of children using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, a multi-level test that includes testing working memory, speech perception, understanding visual information and other skills.

18.6 percent of the women interviewed said they experienced violence between the start of pregnancy and up to six years after giving birth. At the same time, 17.6 percent reported psychological violence, and 6.8 percent physical. The researchers controlled for parental demographics and socioeconomic status, alcohol consumption and smoking during pregnancy, and maternal depression as side variables in evaluating the association between maternal abuse and child cognitive ability.

The researchers then counted the number of children with below average intelligence (less than 90 points) at age 8 in both groups. Among women who were not abused, 13 percent of children had below average general intelligence, 9.9 percent verbal intelligence, and 20.4 percent performative intelligence. Those who reported violence had 16.8, 12.1 and 25.6 percent, respectively. At the same time, physical violence, apparently, turned out to be more traumatic than psychological: from the first, children lost an average of 5.6 points compared to their peers, and from the second - 2.9 points..

In this way, scientists have demonstrated that the problem of domestic violence is still relevant in the UK and can even affect the mental abilities of the children of victims of women. However, the authors of the work note that not all cases of violence could be identified - due to the fact, for example, that women were afraid to talk about it or forgot when exactly it happened, so the real numbers may be different (most likely even more).

In 2018, scientists recorded a drop in the average level of intelligence - at least in Norway. Now there are technologies that allow you to choose a future child with the highest possible cognitive abilities based on genetic tests - however, as it turned out, they do not give a big win, and their accuracy is low. And about how intelligence is connected with other characteristics of a person, for example, appearance or love of music, we talked about in the material "Stop being clever."

Polina Loseva

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Every third woman on the planet is beaten, threatened and humiliated: Society Articles ➕1, 11/24/2022

November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, established by the UN in 1999. Plus-one.ru provides key figures and facts on this issue from key reports from the WHO, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and UN Women.

The prevalence of violence against women is due to the fact that only a small number of victims seek help

Photo: kitzcorner / iStock

. This figure does not include sexual harassment, and in some regions, such as Oceania, it can exceed 50%.

Most violence against women comes from their intimate partners. Globally, 27% of women in relationships experience some form of physical or sexual abuse by a man during their lifetime. Among these women, 42% are physically injured. Up to 38% of murders of women worldwide are committed by their intimate partners.

Violence affects not only the physical and mental, but also the sexual and reproductive health of women. Among the victims of violence, the risks of developing depression, committing suicide, unwanted pregnancy, induced abortion, gynecological problems, and HIV infection are significantly higher (1.5 times). Violence committed during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth (by 41%), stillbirth, miscarriage (by 16%).

Every 11 minutes, a girl or woman dies at the hands of an intimate partner or family member. In 2020, 81,000 women were victims of premeditated murder. More than half of them (47 thousand) died at the hands of their intimate partners or family members.

Fewer than 40% of abused women seek help. Most of them seek protection and support from family and friends, and only a few from official structures: law enforcement or health services. For example, less than 10% of those who decide to open up and get help turn to the police.

Domestic violence laws exist in 155 countries, and sexual harassment in the workplace in 140. At the same time, the UN has 193 states, and there are more than 200 countries and territories in the world. However, laws to protect women from violence often do not meet international standards and recommendations, or are not applied at all in practice.

Adult women account for nearly half (49%) of all identified victims of human trafficking worldwide. Women and girls together make up 72%, but three out of every four such victims are girls. The majority of women (83%) and girls (72%) are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

10 facts about human trafficking

Who and where are sold for organs and into slavery

they entered before the age of 18. Child marriage is most common in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three minors were married off. Early marriages lead to early pregnancies, social isolation, school interruptions, and increased risk of domestic violence.

At least 200 million women and girls aged 15 to 49 in 31 countries around the world have been victims of genital mutilation. Half of these countries are in West Africa. In some countries, such as Sudan, such surgeries are commonplace, affecting nine out of 10 girls and women aged 15-49.

15 million adolescent girls aged 15-19 worldwide were forced to have sex. Girls are most at risk from their current or former husband, partner or friend. Only 1% of victims have ever sought professional help.

Gender-based violence in schools is a major barrier to universal literacy and girls' rights to education. Worldwide, one in three students aged 11-15 are bullied by their peers at least once a month. Girls and boys are equally affected by bullying, with boys more likely to experience physical abuse and girls more likely to experience psychological abuse.

Between 40% and 60% of women in the Middle East and North Africa experience sexual harassment on the street. Between 31% and 64% of men in these regions admitted to having committed such acts.

82% of women parliamentarians in the five regions of the world have experienced some form of psychological abuse, 44% of them reported that they or their families were threatened with death, rape, assault or kidnapping. 65% of women received sexist remarks, mostly from their male counterparts in parliament.

Every 10th woman in the European Union since the age of 15 has been cyberstalked, i.