Original researchImpact of police-reported intimate partner violence during pregnancy on birth outcomes
Section snippets
Materials and methods
This was a population-based, retrospective, cohort study. Exposed subjects were women 16 to 49 years old who had reported one or more partner violence incidents to the Seattle Police Department in the years 1995 through 1998 and who subsequently had a singleton live birth or fetal death registered in the state of Washington within a time frame that indicated they were pregnant at the time of the incident. The time interval from incident to birth or fetal death was calculated from the birth
Results
Of the 389 abused women, 342 (87.9%) reported one incident during the index gestational period, 37 (9.5%) two incidents, and ten (2.6%) three to five incidents. Of the 389 incidents selected for analysis, the majority (72%) were categorized as physical violence. Approximately one third of women with reported partner violence during pregnancy were of non-Hispanic, white race/ethnicity and one third were non-Hispanic, black (Table 1). Over 80% were under 30 years old, and 20% were teenagers.
Women
Discussion
This study is one of the few population-based studies conducted to date and the first to examine the relationship between intimate partner violence and birth outcomes using police data. Measurement has been a consistent problem in previous studies of both prevalence of partner violence during pregnancy and outcomes related to partner violence. These studies rely on self-report, which may be constrained by the subject’s fear of her partner, shame or loss of self-esteem, entrapment and lack of
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