Maternal perinatal risk factors and child abuse

The Epidemiology of Nonaccidental Trauma in Children

“…Increased life stressors [2,15,19,44] Decreased self-esteem [2] Easy to anger [2] Depression [15,45] Aggressive [2] Punished ''unfairly'' as a child [2] Relationships with parents more negative [2] Parent was in foster care or abandoned as a child [2,3] Less likely to have a close relationship with the child's father/other biological parent [2,44] Has lost child to foster care or avoidable death [2] Unplanned pregnancy [2] Unwanted pregnancy [2] Engages in criminal activity/violence as an adult [3,37] Chronically ill or disabled [3] Personality disorder [3,23,37] Borderline to moderate intellectual impairment [3,37] External agency support needed [3] History of suicide attempt(s) [37] More likely to use physical punishment [45] Parents ''undervigilant'' about child's whereabouts [45] Less prenatal care [6] Clumsy [45] Parents used significant harsh corporal punishment [36] Has relationship problems with other adults [47] Increased number of separations from the child in the first year [44] Shorter birth intervals [6] Frequent change of adults in charge of children (spouses, cohabitees, relatives, etc) [3] No difference in size or composition of maternal social network; mothers who mistreated their children did not see others as a possible source of help; did not think they were competent to enlist help; were unable to express empathy for others; and engaged in nonreciprocal interactions aimed at coercing others to...…”

“…There is a wide range in the reported incidence of NAT, ranging from 0.47 per 100,000 to 2000 per 100,000 [2,43]. A wide range of risk factors have been investigated, including birth order and family structure to whether the perpetrator had been abused as a child [3,6,14,30,34]. Studies reviewing orthopaedic injuries as a result of NAT are a bit more homogeneous with fractures in some bones being clearly more related to NAT than others [27,31,39].…”

Abusive relationships, care and control conflicts and insecure attachments

“…For example, GilesSims (1985) and Ross (1996) have reported that up to two-thirds of men who batter their partners also abuse their children, while Rumm et al (2000) found a fivefold increase 'Up to two-thirds of men who batter their partners also abuse their children' in subsequent substantiated child abuse reports if spouse abuse was a feature of family life. The other is the association between child abuse and deficient perinatal care which has been reported in a number of studies (Polansky et al, 1981;Stewart and Gangbar, 1984;Benedict et al, 1985;Anderson, 1987;Egan et al, 1990;Schloesser et al, 1992).…”

Évaluation critique de la recherche sur l’étiologie de la violence envers les enfants

“…L'âge, le sexe et tout particulièrement la classe sociale d'appartenance sont les variables concernées. Les statistiques sur les parents abusifs montrent une sur-représentation des jeunes parents, en particulier des jeunes mères (Benedict et al, 1985;Creighton, 1985). L'inexpérience, l'instabilité conjugale, l'insé-curité seraient des variables intermédiaires expliquant ce phénomène.…”