By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A new analysis by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found that pregnant women who are assaulted by an intimate partner are at increased risk of giving birth to infants of reduced weight.
According to a NIH press release, the study analyzed medical records of more than 5 million pregnant women in California over a 10-year period and found that infants born to women who were hospitalized for injuries received from an assault during their pregnancies weighed, on average one-third pound less than did infants born to women who were not hospitalized. Assaults in the first trimester were associated with the largest decrease in birth weight.
Although women’s education level, rates of smoking, and nutritional habits are known to affect birth weight, the study concluded that the lower birth weights seen in the study could not be accounted for by these factors and were most strongly linked to the violence itself.
The study, conducted by Anna Aizer, Ph.D., of Brown University and published online in the Journal of Human Resources, used data collected between 1991 and 2002. Dr. Aizer compared the birth records in California to the records of pregnant women hospitalized in California as a result of injuries from assault.
She found that for every 100,000 women who gave birth in that period, 31 had been hospitalized for an injury from an assault while they were pregnant. Although these data did not distinguish between domestic violence and violence from other types of assault, previous research has shown that 87 percent of pregnant women with injuries were injured by an intimate partner.
The overall rate of assaults was 31 per 100,000 women. The study documented higher rates of assault among the poor (49.5 per 100,000), black women (157 per 100,000), and those without a high school education (39 per 100,000).
Dr. Aizer theorized that higher rates of violence among poor women might be a root cause of poor health and poverty that persists in some families from one generation to the next. A connection between violence during pregnancy, adult health, and future earnings is possible because all three factors are linked to low birth weight. Poor women are at greater risk for having low birth weight infants than are other women. In turn, when they reach adulthood, individuals born at low birth weight are at increased risk for such adult health problems as diabetes and heart disease. Also, when they reach adulthood, individuals born as low birth weight infants also earn less than their counterparts who were born at normal birth weight.
“The costs of violence against women may be borne not just by the victims but by the next generation as well,” said Dr. Aizer. “Given the importance of birth weight in determining adult education and income, these results suggest that the higher levels of violence experienced by poor women may also contribute to the intergenerational persistence of poverty.”
Infants born weighing less than 5.5 pounds, are considered low birth weight and have an increased risk of death or of developing several health and developmental disorders. Low birth weight infants also are at greater risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) as well as breathing problems, cerebral palsy, heart disorders and learning disabilities.
However, protecting women from domestic violence is as steep hill to climb. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the U.S. is experiencing an epidemic of violence against women. Their statistics show that one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime with an estimated 1.3 million women experiencing physical abuse by an intimate partner every year in the U.S. Eighty-five percent of all domestic violence victims are women with females between the ages of 20-24 the most at risk for nonfatal intimate partner violence. But these numbers are believed to be grossly underestimated as most cases of domestic violence are never reported to police.
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