Homicide is a top cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S.
BLACK WOMEN ARE AT HIGHER RISK By Angela Lindsay
O
f all the concerns a pregnant woman may face as she navigates the months leading up to her child’s birth, violence at the hands of a domestic partner is one that is alarmingly on the rise. According to a study published last October in the medical journal “Obstetrics & Gynecology,” homicide was the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women in the U.S. in 2018 and 2019. The Tulane University researchers who wrote the study found that U.S. 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 of the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths such as bleeding or placental disorders. Researchers have concluded that this increase in homicide deaths among pregnant and recently pregnant women is due, in large part, to violence by intimate partners, a Johns Hopkins School of Nursing scientist, Phyllis Sharps told the science journal “Nature” last November. Pregnant and postpartum Black women and young women and girls between 10 to 24, are at the greatest risk of being killed, according to 2018-2019 data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The Tulane University researchers found that pregnant and postpartum Black women in the U.S. have an almost three times higher risk of dying by homicide than women who are not pregnant — the highest increase reported among any racial or ethnic group. Aaron Kivisto, clinical psychologist at the University of Indianapolis and lead author of a study on Black women and partner violence in the “Journal of Interpersonal Violence,” last year, said his team “found that pregnant Black women were eight times more
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