A Critical Review of Maternal Abuse and Infant Outcomes: Implications for Newborn Nurses

Abuse of women is endemic in the United States, with most violence occurring during childhood or the childbearing years. This article presents a summary of the physical and psychological adaptations that occur in women subsequent to abuse experience and the key physiologic changes that affect pregnancy for these women. Outlining these physiologic changes provides the basis for understanding and discussing the available evidence of newborn outcomes when the mother has been abused. The maternal-newborn relationship is explored in the context of abuse experiences. Long-term alterations in childhood growth and development are noted. Recommendations for nursing interventions to improve newborn outcomes when the mother has been abused are provided. Areas needing additional research include comparative descriptive designs exploring early maternal newborn relationships for abused as compared with nonabused mother-infant dyads and testing of interventions to decrease the stress response.