He hurts her womb: Physical-sexual violence and pregnancy complications among women in Afghanistan

Abstract

Background: Though some studies show the association between intimate partner violence and pregnancy complications in developed countries, the association remains understudied in less developed and low-income settings. This study examines the association of physical and sexual violence with pregnancy complications among women in Afghanistan. Methods: This study used the data from the 2015 Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey (AfDHS). The analysis included 7229 women aged between 15 and 49 and used logistic regression to show the association of physical and sexual violence with pregnancy compilations. The analysis controlled for some potential variables and followed complex survey design factors such as strata, clusters, and survey weights. Results: Fully adjusted regression model shows that the women who experienced physical violence were 21% (adjusted odds ratio [OR]=1.21; confidence interval [CI]=0.98, 1.50; P<0.1) more likely to endure pregnancy complications compared to those who did not face the violence. Likewise, the women experiencing sexual violence were 89% (adjusted OR=1.89; CI=1.37, 2.62; P<0.01) higher to face pregnancy complications than those who did not face any of sexual violence. More specifically, physically and sexually violated women were highly prey to the complications that increased with the increment of the violence. Conclusion: This study adds that policymakers may formulate policies for ensuring 3C (caring couple counselling) by readdressing couple relationships, raising gender rights and awareness, providing reproductive health literacy, and increasing mental health awareness during pregnancy.

Associations of antenatal care visit with utilization of institutional delivery care services in Afghanistan: intersections of education, wealth, and household decision-making autonomy

“…Beating wife not justified index: Beating wife not justified was a summative index composed of the following five items representing women’s perception about violence perpetrated by their husbands/partners against them [ 27 ]: a) “Beating justified if wife goes out without telling husband”, b) “Beating justified if wife neglects the children”, c) “Beating justified if wife argues with husband”, d) “Beating justified if wife refuses to have sex with husband”, and e) “Beating justified if wife burns the food”. The response “no” to all these items was coded 0, and the response “yes” was coded 1, while the response “don’t know” was coded missing.…”

Pregnancy complications and intimate partner violence: The moderating role of prenatal posttraumatic stress symptoms

“…Existing literature has identified exposure to different types of IPV as a significant risk factor for singular pregnancy complications during the prenatal period (Audi et al, 2012;Khaironisak et al, 2017). For example, Ferdos and colleagues (2017) found that physical IPV and sexual IPV sustained during pregnancy were each associated with a 5-fold increase in the risk of pregnancy complications, whereas Rahman et al (2021) found that lifetime exposure to physical and sexual IPV doubled the risk of pregnancy complications. Using bivariate analyses, Avanigadda and Kulasekaran (2021) found that physical, sexual, and psychological IPV were significantly related to experiencing more pregnancy complications; when accounting for factors like marital control, however, only physical and sexual IPV remained significant.…”