Rogowski Belén, Bond Melissa H, Ponting Carolyn, Chu Ann T, Lieberman Alicia F
Northern Arizona University, USA.
University of California, San Francisco, USA.
J Interpers Violence. 2025 Jul 22:8862605251353503. doi: 10.1177/08862605251353503.
Experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy can have long-lasting effects on children's stress reactivity and psychological development. Despite this, prenatal exposures to IPV are rarely assessed among children with traumatic experiences, and the prenatal effects of these events on children's posttraumatic stress symptomatology remain mostly unknown. This study was a secondary analysis that examined the association between maternal exposure to IPV in pregnancy and child posttraumatic stress symptoms in a cross-sectional sample of 207 ethnically diverse, treatment-seeking, parent-child dyads. Children ( = 4.4 years; 55.1% male) had experienced at least one traumatic event since birth, and most children ( = 148, 71.5%) had at least one childhood experience of IPV; 23.7% ( = 49) had at least one prenatal exposure to IPV. Results of a two-step hierarchical regression analysis revealed that children's prenatal IPV exposures were positively associated with child posttraumatic stress symptoms ( = 2.82, 95% CI [0.16, 5.49], β = .15, (193) = 2.09, = .038), even after accounting for the effects of childhood IPV exposures and maternal depression. Post-hoc analyses also tested associations between prenatal IPV and children's posttraumatic stress symptom clusters (i.e., arousal, avoidance, intrusion), showing positive associations between prenatal IPV and children's avoidance symptoms [ = 1.24, [0.23, 2.25], β = .18, (193) = 2.43, =.016] after accounting for childhood IPV exposures and maternal depression. Findings suggest that prenatal exposures to IPV may be uniquely associated with the development of more severe posttraumatic stress symptomatology among preschool-aged children. This evidence calls for the assessment of prenatal exposures to violence when evaluating and treating trauma-exposed children.
孕期亲密伴侣暴力（IPV）经历可能会对儿童的应激反应性和心理发展产生长期影响。尽管如此，在有创伤经历的儿童中，很少评估其在产前是否遭受过IPV，而且这些事件对儿童创伤后应激症状的产前影响大多仍不为人知。本研究是一项二次分析，在一个包含207个不同种族、寻求治疗的亲子二元组的横断面样本中，考察孕期母亲遭受IPV与儿童创伤后应激症状之间的关联。儿童（平均年龄 = 4.4岁；55.1%为男性）自出生以来至少经历过一次创伤事件，大多数儿童（n = 148，71.5%）至少有过一次童年期IPV经历；23.7%（n = 49）至少在产前遭受过一次IPV。两步分层回归分析结果显示，即使在考虑了童年期IPV经历和母亲抑郁的影响后，儿童产前IPV暴露与儿童创伤后应激症状呈正相关（b = 2.82，95%置信区间[0.16，5.49]，β = 0.15，t(193) = 2.09，p = 0.038）。事后分析还检验了产前IPV与儿童创伤后应激症状群（即唤醒、回避、侵入）之间的关联，结果表明，在考虑了童年期IPV经历和母亲抑郁的影响后，产前IPV与儿童的回避症状呈正相关[b = 1.24，95%置信区间[0.23，2.25]，β = 0.18，t(193) = 2.43，p = 0.016]。研究结果表明，产前暴露于IPV可能与学龄前儿童更严重的创伤后应激症状的发展存在独特关联。这一证据表明，在评估和治疗遭受创伤的儿童时，需要评估其产前暴力暴露情况。
