Intimate partner violence and early child growth: a community-based cohort study in Nicaragua
Salazar, M.; Högberg, U.; Valladares, E.; Persson, L-Åke.
Bmc Pediatrics 12: 82
2012
ISSN/ISBN: 1471-2431 PMID: 22726225 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2431-12-82Document Number: 565756
This study analyses whether a mother's exposure to different forms of Intimate PartnerViolence (IPV) during pregnancy was associated with the index child linear growth, andwhether these associations were modified by the gender of the child. A pregnancy cohort of 478 women in Leon, Nicaragua, resulted in 461 live births. From thisgroup, 81% (375/461) children were available for anthropometric follow-up at 4 to 46months. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to assess the association between IPVand height-for-age Z-scores, adjusting for confounding factors. Sixty-three percent (236/375) of the mothers had been exposed to some form of IPV duringpregnancy (emotional, physical, sexual or controlling behavior). After adjustment forconfounding factors, maternal exposure to any IPV during pregnancy was associated with.24 lower mean height-for-age Z-scores (p = .2). A separate analysis of each IPV typeshowed that emotional, physical or sexual IPV during pregnancy were not significantlyassociated with lower mean height-for-age Z-scores, whereas ever exposure to controllingbehavior by the father of the child was related to .29 lower mean height-for-age Z-scores(p < .1) When stratified by gender, these associations remained significant only for younggirls. This study has contributed to the growing amount of evidence pointing to the pervasive effectof different forms of IPV on child health. Our study highlights the relevance of maternalautonomy for linear child growth, especially for young girls in the Nicaraguan context.