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(hague G Et Al. 1998). They Make No Comment About The Intuitive Possibility ...

(Hague G et al. 1998). They make no comment about the intuitive possibility that children who suffer or observe domestic violence may also have a higher incidence of neurotic traits in adult life.


If we now consider specific papers that target the phenomenon of domestic violence in specific relation to pregnancy, we can start with the paper by Mezey (G C et al. 1997). This is an attempt to provide an overview of the area, which it certainly does, but it has to be observed that the papers that it cites, although undoubtedly worthy, are not particularly representative of the whole spectrum of the available literature on the subject. One of the reasons that we have presented a long preamble prior to reviewing specific papers, is the fact that we have been at pains to consider a wide spectrum of authoritative opinion in this area. The comments that the paper makes that domestic violence is reported by up to 25% of women in the Britain, is demonstrably misleading. The paper it cites for this bold statement is the Mooney paper (Mooney J 1993). The major stumbling block here is that the paper itself is a well constructed study, but the entry cohort was women known to the social services in Islington. It is clearly a major error of judgement to try to extrapolate this figure to be representative of the women of Britain in general. There are a number of similar methodological errors in the paper but the reason that we have selected it for inclusion here is the fact that it specifically examines the literature of domestic violence relating to pregnancy. In addition to many of the points that we have already raised in terms of the demography and aetiology of domestic violence, the paper cites convincing evidence that the risk of domestic violence is enhanced by pregnancy with severe attacks being the most common in the post-partum period. It is both interesting, and possibly significant, to note that one paper that is repeatedly cited is the Hilberman paper of 1978. (Hilberman E et al. 1978). This is a particularly interesting paper as it is written from the author's viewpoint that women who suffer domestic violence are often compliant victims. It puts forward anecdotal evidence to suggest that some women in abusive relationships will often actually try to become pregnant in an attempt to protect themselves from further attack. The authors cite the fact that women who are both pregnant and victims of domestic violence, are much more likely to describe their pregnancy as unplanned and unwanted. It seems clear that any analytical assessment of these two concepts would suggest that they are mutually exclusive. In any event it would appear that the situation, if contrived, is more likely to generate further violence than to protect against it.

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