SOCIAL ISSUES IN REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH Association of intimate partner physical and sexual violence with unintended pregnancy among pregnant women in Peru Swee May Cripe a, ⁎ , Sixto E. Sanchez b , Maria Teresa Perales c , Nally Lam d , Pedro Garcia d , Michelle A. Williams a a Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA b Instituto Nacional de Salud, Lima City, Peru c Pediatric Emergency Hospital, Lima, Peru d Instituto Nacional Materno Perinatal, Lima, Peru Received 1 June 2007; received in revised form 1 August 2007; accepted 2 August 2007 Abstract Objective: To examine the associations between lifetime physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) with pregnancy intent among pregnant women in Lima, Peru. Methods: A total of 2167 women who delivered at the Instituto Nacional Materno Perinatal, Lima, Peru were interviewed during the postpartum recovery period. Logistic regression was used to estimate multivariable adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results: Lifetime physical or sexual violence (40.0%) and unintended pregnancies (65.3%) were common in the study population. Compared with non-abused women, abused women had a 1.63-fold increased risk for unintended pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy risk was 3.31-fold higher among women who experienced both physical and sexual abuse compared with non-abused women. The prevalence and severity of physical violence during pregnancy was greater among women with unintended pregnancies compared with women with planned pregnancies. Conclusion: The findings indicate the need to include IPV screening and treatment in prenatal care and reproductive health settings. © 2007 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. KEYWORDS Unintended pregnancy; Intimate partner violence; Pregnant women; Developing country; Latin America 1. Introduction Unwanted or mistimed pregnancies are generally referred to as unintended pregnancies (UP). Annually, some 87 million ⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Box 357236, Seattle, WA 98195-7236, USA. Tel.: +1 206 221 3953; fax: +1 206 543 8525. E-mail address: smtang@u.washington.edu (S.M. Cripe). 0020-7292/$ - see front matter © 2007 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijgo.2007.08.003 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/ijgo International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics (2008) 100, 104–108