24th October 2022 2:24:13 PM
2 mins readAccording to a recent study that was published on Wednesday in the BMJ, homicide is a major cause of mortality for pregnant women in the United States, and the risk is rising.
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Image from Pixabay and Free-PhotosIt is their husbands and boyfriends who are more likely to kill pregnant women than high blood pressure, bleeding, or infection.According to a recent study that was published on Wednesday in the BMJ, homicide is a major cause of mortality for pregnant women in the United States, and the risk is rising.
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It's "a shocking situation linked to a lethal combination of intimate partner violence and firearms," the researchers said in a journal news release. They were led by Rebecca Lawn, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
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Ending male violence in the United States, including gun violence, could save the lives of hundreds of women and their unborn children every year, the investigators said.
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Intimate partner violence is common worldwide, with 1 in 3 women experiencing physical, sexual or psychological abuse from a partner during their lifetimes.
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The problem is even worse in the United States, which has a higher prevalence of both past-year and lifetime intimate partner violence than other high-income countries. Researchers said the U.S. situation is very serious and deteriorating.
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Between 2008 and 2019, about 68% of homicides in pregnancy involved firearms. Black women were at substantially higher risk of being killed than White women or Hispanic women. Rates of domestic homicides are also associated with state-level rates of gun ownership and firearms legislation, the authors said.
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Few people accused of intimate partner violence are ever convicted, the authors said, noting many loopholes allow access to firearms.
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And, they added, women may be facing more risk because of the recent dismantling of reproductive rights in the United States.
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Controlling a woman's reproductive choices is common in intimate partner violence. Restricting access to abortion may worsen the risks in abusive relationships.
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Pregnancy is also a time for screening and intervention, because women have more interactions with healthcare providers. These interventions may help stop a pattern of abuse that could lead to homicide or adverse health outcomes, researchers said, but they must accompany urgent work to reduce all forms of violence against women.
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Research on how to identify risk factors for homicide in pregnancy is also critical to prevention efforts, the researchers added.
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