ABSTRACT
An unanticipated finding of one of the first exploratory studies of violence toward women was that pregnant women appeared to be at high risk of violence and abuse. Despite the frequency with which the association between violence and pregnancy has been reported in the professional literature, there is still a question as to whether pregnant women are at higher risk of being victimized by their husbands or partners. Violence was operationalized through the use of the Conflict Tactics Scales. The rates of violence overall, minor, and severe were higher in the households where the wife or female partner was pregnant at the time of the interview. The various methods of measuring violence and assessing the possible link between pregnancy and violence account for the wide variation in reported associations. Anne Helton's and Lenore E. Walker's investigations were somewhat more systematic in the search for a possible link between violence and pregnancy.
