The Association between Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) During Pregnancy and Birth Weight

Introduction: Intimate partner violence is referred to actual or threatened abuse by an intimate partner. These abuses are including sexual, physical, psychological, or emotional which can cause indirect adverse fetal health effects including low birth weight and intrauterine growth retardation. The results of some studies explain that the violence during pregnancy can affect the birth weight. The purpose of this research is therefore to examine Intimate partner violence during pregnancy and low birth weight.

Materials and Methods: This is a correlation-descriptive analytical study. It was performed on 843 females that they were victims of violence (physical, psychological, and sexual) in Zahedan in south-east of Zahedan, Iran, in 2008-2009. The sampling method was multistage randomquota sampling. The inclusion criteria were singleton pregnancy, full-term (37-42 gestational weeks), passing four hours after childbirth, and exclusion criteria included a history of medical diseases, smoking, and violence by someone other than the husband. All data were entered in SPSS for Windows (Version 18.0, SPSS Inc., Evenston, Illinois) and analyzed using statistical tests such as Chi-square, t-test by statistician.

Results: The results indicated that some types of psychological violence such as “threatening to divorce” and “disrespecting and swearing among other people” and some types of sexual violence like “oral or rectal intercourse” and “any other sexual violence by the husband” associated with birth weight, but physical violence and birth weight had not significant relationship (P>0.05).

Conclusion: The psychological violence was the most frequent type of violence in Zahedan that it associated with birth weight in Zahedan.