Nov 14, 2021 05:42 PM
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-0...-8#ref-CR1
EXCERPTS: Pregnant women in the United States die by homicide more often than they die of pregnancy-related causes — and they're frequently killed by a partner — according to a study published last month in Obstetrics & Gynecology...
[...] Although smaller studies have tracked homicides during pregnancy at the state and local level, confirming the scope of the phenomenon on a national scale is valuable, says Vijay Singh ... “You can’t understand a problem unless you can measure it.”
The study results, he adds, are “stunning”. The researchers found that US women who are pregnant or were pregnant in the past 42 days (the post-partum period) die by homicide at more than twice the rate that they die of bleeding or placental disorders — the leading causes of what are usually classified as pregnancy-related deaths...
[...] To arrive at a national snapshot, reproductive epidemiologist Maeve Wallace ... and her co-authors analysed data for deaths in all 50 US states from 2018 and 2019, using information in the National Center for Health Statistics database...
[...] When tracking deaths among pregnant women in the United States, the CDC doesn’t classify homicide, accidents or suicides as causes of ‘maternal mortality’. Wallace and others say homicides should be counted, because there is indeed a connection between homicide and pregnancy.
The overall rate of maternal mortality in the United States is on the rise. And it is particularly high for a wealthy country. Contributing factors include inadequate access to health care, staff who are poorly trained for obstetric emergencies, and subpar care given to Black women because of racism in clinical practice.
On the basis of years of study, specialists in intimate-partner violence expect women who are already in abusive relationships to be at increased risk of homicide if they become pregnant. Wallace and her co-authors say that about two-thirds of the homicides recorded in their data occurred in the person’s home, suggesting that the woman was killed by her partner. It’s not a perfect indicator, Wallace says, “but it’s all we’ve got in these data”.
The team found that Black women in the United States who are pregnant or were recently pregnant have up to nearly three-fold higher risk of dying by homicide than those who are not pregnant — the highest increase reported among any racial or ethnic group. (The team reported rates only among Black, Hispanic and white women, because the sample sizes for other groups — such as Asian American women or Native American women — were too small to publish.)
Black women are similarly at heightened risk of death from obstetric causes. Overall, Black women who are pregnant or were recently pregnant die of pregnancy-related causes 2.5 times as often as non-Hispanic white women, according to the CDC.
Age is also a factor in pregnancy-related homicide, the team found: young women between the ages of 10 and 24 are at higher risk of homicide while pregnant than are those who are older, according to the study. “It’s an age and race story,” Wallace says.
What Wallace and coworkers “have done with the data available gives more confidence to the scope of the problem and the work that came before”, says Aaron Kivisto, a clinical psychologist at the University of Indianapolis in Indiana who studies domestic violence and suicide prevention. In a study published in February this year, he and his colleagues showed increased risk of homicide for Black pregnant women, compared with white or Hispanic pregnant women... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Pregnant women in the United States die by homicide more often than they die of pregnancy-related causes — and they're frequently killed by a partner — according to a study published last month in Obstetrics & Gynecology...
[...] Although smaller studies have tracked homicides during pregnancy at the state and local level, confirming the scope of the phenomenon on a national scale is valuable, says Vijay Singh ... “You can’t understand a problem unless you can measure it.”
The study results, he adds, are “stunning”. The researchers found that US women who are pregnant or were pregnant in the past 42 days (the post-partum period) die by homicide at more than twice the rate that they die of bleeding or placental disorders — the leading causes of what are usually classified as pregnancy-related deaths...
[...] To arrive at a national snapshot, reproductive epidemiologist Maeve Wallace ... and her co-authors analysed data for deaths in all 50 US states from 2018 and 2019, using information in the National Center for Health Statistics database...
[...] When tracking deaths among pregnant women in the United States, the CDC doesn’t classify homicide, accidents or suicides as causes of ‘maternal mortality’. Wallace and others say homicides should be counted, because there is indeed a connection between homicide and pregnancy.
The overall rate of maternal mortality in the United States is on the rise. And it is particularly high for a wealthy country. Contributing factors include inadequate access to health care, staff who are poorly trained for obstetric emergencies, and subpar care given to Black women because of racism in clinical practice.
On the basis of years of study, specialists in intimate-partner violence expect women who are already in abusive relationships to be at increased risk of homicide if they become pregnant. Wallace and her co-authors say that about two-thirds of the homicides recorded in their data occurred in the person’s home, suggesting that the woman was killed by her partner. It’s not a perfect indicator, Wallace says, “but it’s all we’ve got in these data”.
The team found that Black women in the United States who are pregnant or were recently pregnant have up to nearly three-fold higher risk of dying by homicide than those who are not pregnant — the highest increase reported among any racial or ethnic group. (The team reported rates only among Black, Hispanic and white women, because the sample sizes for other groups — such as Asian American women or Native American women — were too small to publish.)
Black women are similarly at heightened risk of death from obstetric causes. Overall, Black women who are pregnant or were recently pregnant die of pregnancy-related causes 2.5 times as often as non-Hispanic white women, according to the CDC.
Age is also a factor in pregnancy-related homicide, the team found: young women between the ages of 10 and 24 are at higher risk of homicide while pregnant than are those who are older, according to the study. “It’s an age and race story,” Wallace says.
What Wallace and coworkers “have done with the data available gives more confidence to the scope of the problem and the work that came before”, says Aaron Kivisto, a clinical psychologist at the University of Indianapolis in Indiana who studies domestic violence and suicide prevention. In a study published in February this year, he and his colleagues showed increased risk of homicide for Black pregnant women, compared with white or Hispanic pregnant women... (MORE - missing details)
