Violence and pregnancy in female users of ministry of health care services in highly deprived states in Mexico

Objective. To characterize intimate partner abuse and identify the main factors associated with violence in pregnancy in four highly deprived States in Mexico. Material and Methods. The data were taken from the National Survey on Violence against Women 2003 (ENVIM per its abbreviation in Spanish). Based on it a cross-sectional study was conducted on 1 949 women between 15 and 50 years of age, who were once pregnant and who utilized primary and secondary health care services from the Ministry of Health, Mexican Institute of Social Security, and the Institute for Social Security and Services for StateWorkers in Guerrero, Hidalgo, Oaxaca and Chiapas states, between November 2002 and March 2003. Logistic regression was used to assess the association between independent variables and violence during pregnancy. Results. 250 women (13%) suffered a type of violence (physical, psychological, sexual or economical) during any of their pregnancies. Of these women 76 (30.40%) were battered on their abdomen. In most of these cases (91.39%) the husband was the aggressor. The variables significantly associated with violence in pregnancy were: woman's illiteracy (OR 2.2; C1 95:%.1,4.4); history of violence in childhood (OR 3.2; C1 95% 1.9, 5.4) as well as sexual abuse in her childhood (OR 2.4, C1 95% 1.3, 4.4) and her partner's daily alcohol consumption (OR 6.5; C1 95% 3.3, 12.9). Conclusions. The results show that violence during pregnancy is a regular event in the impoverished context and that its expression is more severe. These results point to the importance of continued study of the problem of violence against pregnant women in Mexico and the importance of identifying battered women in prenatal care.