More Than 3000 New Mothers Abused In North Carolina Each Year.

2001 APR 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Each year, more than 3% of new mothers in North Carolina, more than 3,000 women, are being physically abused, mostly by their husbands or boyfriends, according to a new University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill study.

Comparable figures could result from similar research in most or all other states, domestic violence experts say, but other state-specific data are not available yet.

The study, conducted at the UNC School of Public Health, also found that although most women mistreated after having babies were injured, only about a quarter of them received treatment for those injuries.

"Despite this high burden of suffering among women abused after infant delivery, virtually all of the abused women still bring their new babies to see clinicians for well-baby care the same as non-abused women do," said Dr. Sandra Martin, associate professor of maternal and child health and principal investigator. "Therefore, we recommend that clinicians, including those who see new mothers and infants should ask women about violence in their lives and then refer women suffering such abuse to appropriate violence-related services."

A report on the research appears in the March 28, 2001, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Besides Martin, authors are biostatistics graduate student Linda Mackie; Dr. Lawrence L. Kupper, professor of biostatistics; and Dr. Kathryn E. Moracco, research assistant professor of health behavior and health education. Dr. Paul A. Buescher of the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics in Raleigh also participated.

"We have no reason to believe that North Carolina is unique in this regard," Martin said. "Domestic violence [is] very widespread in this country."

The team conducted the investigation because while numerous studies have examined violence before and during pregnancy, no large-scale investigations have examined what happened after women delivered. Mail and telephone survey data on a representative sample of more than 3,000 women who had recently given birth were gathered through the North Carolina Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Seventy-five percent of women invited to participate agreed.