NCJ Number
220197
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 22 Issue: 7 Dated: October 2007 Pages: 609-619
Date Published
October 2007
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Based on data obtained from a nationally representative cohort of pregnant women and prospective fathers in U.S. cities, this study determined the prevalence and correlates of interpersonal violence (IVP)--physical, emotional, and coercion-control during pregnancy and 1 year after the birth.
Abstract
Overall, 33 percent of mothers and 40 percent of fathers experienced some form of IPV during or after the pregnancy. Hispanic women and women no longer romantically involved with their children's fathers were most likely to experience IPV during pregnancy. Other factors related to a high risk of IPV both during and after pregnancy were less education, personal or spouse's use of alcohol or illicit drugs, and an unwanted pregnancy. Experiencing physical violence during pregnancy was strongly related to violent abuse in the year after the birth. Recent immigrants were among the least likely to leave a violent relationship within 1 year after the birth. Women born in the United States who were employed during their pregnancy were among the most likely to leave an abusive relationship 1 year after the birth. One implication from the findings is that screenings for IPV during pregnancy should focus on the family unit and include both mothers and fathers, with attention to emotional abuse and coercion-control as well as physical violence. This study, called the Fragile Families study, involved a stratified random sample of hospital births in 20 large U.S. cities. Unwed mothers were oversampled. The data are representative of births in U.S. cities with populations over 200,000 in 1999. For the majority of births, both new mothers and fathers were interviewed within 3 days of the delivery. The data analysis was limited to the 4,365 women with completed interviews at both the baseline and 1 year after the birth. 3 tables and 52 references