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Issues - Domestic violence - DV and pregnancy
Note: The alleged DV research never refers
to the effects of violence on men. Ask men how often they
have been assaulted, or abused and the figures may look surreal.
But then we know that male victims of violence do not matter.
How can they say women with violent partners
were more likely to get pregnant?
Yet again the feminist portray a version of
their reality but not that which is real. Time to stop their
funding unless the research is properly conducted, rigorous
and stands up to scrutiny.
Young women treated violently are up to three
times as likely to miscarry, and are more likely to have a
stillbirth, premature birth or an abortion, according to a
large Australian survey of women and violence.
In the study of more than 14,000 young women,
about one in 33 reported violence from a partner and a recent
experience of violence. One in 20 experienced violence from
a non-partner. Another 7 per cent had previously been treated
violently by a partner.
The study, part of which will be published tomorrow
in the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health,
questioned the women about violence and their health in 1996
when they were aged 18 to 23, then surveyed them again in
2000.
By 2000, fewer than one in 100 remained in her
violent relationship of 1996, but two in 100 had moved into
one.
Researchers plan to track the women over 20
years.
Angela Taft, a research fellow at La Trobe University's
Mother and Child Health Research and one of the study's authors,
said the findings revealed a strong connection between violence,
pregnancy rates and difficulties in pregnancy or childbirth.
Even when researchers allowed for other factors
that might contribute - for example class, education, place
of birth, drinking and smoking - abused women still had a
higher risk of problems in pregnancy.
Women with violent partners were far more likely
to have become pregnant.
In 1996, women with violent partners who had
recently endured violence were three times as likely to have
had a miscarriage, and twice as likely to have given birth
and had a miscarriage. They were five times more likely to
have had an abortion and a miscarriage, and four times as
likely to have had an abortion, a miscarriage and a birth.
By 2000, they also reported higher rates of
stillbirths and premature births.
The study also found that in 2000, abused women
had a higher risk of sexually transmitted infections, with
three times the rate of human papilloma virus - the main cause
of cervical cancer - than women not treated violently. They
were also 11 times more likely to have had hepatitis C in
the past four years and twice as likely to have had herpes.
A senior obstetrician at the Royal Women's Hospital,
Julie Quinlivan, said the risk of infection explained the
link between women's experiences of violence and difficulties
in pregnancy and birth.
Abused women were more likely to have been exposed
to genital tract infections, Associate Professor Quinlivan
said, many of which are believed to cause miscarriage and
premature births. She said this had been supported by a number
of recent studies.
The Age (Melbourne)
2 August 2004
www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/01/1091298576360.html
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