Murder is Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women

Murder has been confirmed once again to be the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the US.

Roughly half of those women who died violently had had some sort of conflict with their current or former partners leading up to the death, causing experts to call for more thorough screening and follow up for domestic problems during pregnancy check-ups.

"I think that there's still an under-appreciation of the risk (for murder and suicide) and probably less screening than should be done," said Dr. Linda Chambliss, director of maternal fetal medicine at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, who did not participate in the new work.

The study shows that about three out of every 100,000 women who are pregnant or have a child less than one year old are murdered, and two out of every 100,000 kill themselves.

Those numbers remained fairly constant from 2003 to 2007, the years that the researchers examined.

This is why it is vitally important for all medical professionals, but especially for OBGYNs, midwives, doulas, and others who provide care for pregnant women to screen for domestic violence and to have information available about community resources. Please encourage your doctors, nurses, and those you know if the medical field to contact us at (404) 370-7670 for training, information, or brochures to keep at their practices.