Intimate Partner Violence and Gestational Weight Gain in a Population-Based Sample of Perinatal Women.
Jeanne L Alhusen, Ruth Geller, Caitlin Dreisbach and 2 others
PMID 28294945WHAT IT FOUND
Among 251,342 U.S. mothers, violence before or during pregnancy was not linked to gaining too little weight after accounting for other factors.
Violence before pregnancy was linked with being slightly more likely to gain too much weight.
Key findings
01After adjustment for maternal age, race/ethnicity, education, income, marital status, smoking, prenatal care adequacy, and pre-pregnancy BMI, perinatal IPV was not significantly associated with inadequate GWG.
02After adjustment, the only IPV timing group with significantly higher odds of excessive GWG was the group reporting IPV before pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio 1.14, 95% CI 1.02-1.26).
03Approximately 6% of mothers reported perinatal IPV: 2.7% before pregnancy only, 1.1% during pregnancy only, and 2.5% both.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The PRAMS IPV measure captured only physical abuse and was self-reported, so psychological or sexual abuse and recall bias may be missed. Pre-pregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain may be inaccurate because they rely on maternal recall and birth certificate data. The final sample was 251,342 after exclusions for missing IPV (2.3%), missing BMI or GWG (10.8%), and missing confounders (11.0% of those remaining), so the results may not represent all mothers. Data on substance use, mental health, or sleep were limited or not routinely collected, and these may confound or mediate associations. Because the data are observational, they show association, not causation.
Declared interests
The supplied publication types note NIH extramural research support. The article text provided here does not include a funding or conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that IPV causes abnormal gestational weight gain or that screening will prevent it. This is an observational survey analysis, and after adjustment the association with inadequate gain was not significant; the remaining association with excessive gain was modest.