Navigating Pregnancy While Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

By Alejandra M. Esparza, LPC, LCDC, EMDR-Certified

“Am I safe during pregnancy?”

“Will my baby be safe?”

“What are my options right now?”

Pregnancy is often portrayed as a time of hope, yet for many it is marked by fear, control, and harm. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) during pregnancy — physical, emotional, sexual, or psychological abuse by a current or former partner — can profoundly affect both the pregnant person and their baby. The CDC affirms that intimate partner violence can begin, continue, or escalate during pregnancy (CDC, 2024, p. 1). Understanding its prevalence, risks, and the life-saving role of safety planning is essential to supporting survivors with compassion and care.

What Intimate Partner Violence Can Look Like

IPV rarely announces itself with a single obvious act. It moves quietly — in words that diminish, in independence slowly eroded, in threats that never need to be spoken to be felt. The CDC defines it broadly: physical and sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression (CDC, 2024, p. 1). Behind that clinical language is harder-to-name realities — coercive control, isolation, and reproductive coercion. And these behaviors do not pause pregnancy. For many, they intensify as abusers exploit heightened vulnerability and dependence.

How Common Is IPV During Pregnancy

The numbers are more sobering than most expect. CDC data show roughly 1 in 20 women who recently gave birth reported experiencing violence from a partner during pregnancy — emotional abuse most often (CDC, 2024, p. 2). That figure likely captures only a fraction of reality; shame and fear keep most experiences invisible. Globally, as many as one in three women experience some form of IPV during pregnancy (Devries et al., 2010, p. 165).

Risk is not distributed evenly. Younger age, economic instability, unintended pregnancy, a partner who uses substances, and a history of past violence all raise vulnerability significantly (Devries et al., 2010, p. 167). These are circumstances, not character flaws. Pregnancy itself can also provoke escalation — a controlling partner may feel threatened by shifting attention or looming responsibility, and for some, that threat surfaces as violence for the very first time.

The Toll It Takes

Harms reach everywhere. Mentally, it settles quietly and persistently — depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and chronic exhaustion are all significantly more common among individuals experiencing IPV during pregnancy (CDC, 2024, p. 3). It is sleep that won’t come. The difficulty functioning through days that should hold joy but feel like something to survive. And it does not end at birth — the same fears follow a person into the postpartum period, shaping how they bond, heal, and show up for their newborn.

Physically, harm reaches the baby, too. Individuals living with IPV are more likely to delay prenatal care — not out of indifference, but because an abusive partner may monitor or prevent it. Research by Alhusen and colleagues (2015) links IPV to significantly increased risk for complications, preterm birth, and low birth weight (p. 101) — outcomes that shape a child’s health trajectory before they take their first breath. IPV often continues or intensifies after birth, and attending postpartum appointments becomes even less likely when a partner restricts access to care (CDC, 2024) — leaving physical and emotional needs quietly, dangerously unmet.

Safety Planning as a Life-Saving Intervention

Safety planning is not a checklist handed to someone in crisis. At its best, it is a conversation — one that meets a person where they are, trusts them as the expert on their own life, and makes space for them to decide what feels possible right now. Autonomy is not courtesy here; it is the foundation. Someone living with IPV has likely had a choice stripped from them. A plan that imposes rather than collaborates risks repeating that dynamic.

That approach saves lives. Campbell and colleagues (2003) identified the warning signs most predictive of femicide: prior threats, escalating violence, and deeply controlling behavior (p. 1093). These patterns are recognizable — and what can be recognized can sometimes be prepared for. Safety planning offers not a guarantee, but a fighting chance: clarity about where to go and who to call when fear makes thinking clearly nearly impossible. The difference between a plan and no plan, in the highest-risk moments, can be the difference between surviving and not.

It also restores something abuse systematically destroys. Dutton and Goodman (2005) found that survivor-centered interventions are most effective when they prioritize autonomy, informed choice, and empowerment (p. 170). Agency, once gently restored, builds itself — making the next hard decision slightly less impossible, and becoming one of the most durable foundations for long-term safety any intervention can offer.

You Do Not Have to Navigate Abuse Alone

Pregnancy while living with violence is one of the loneliest places a person can be. The world expects joy. Reality is fear. But no one has to face it alone.

You deserve safety. Not eventually. Now — in this pregnancy, in whatever imperfect moment you are standing in. If any part of this resonates, support exists and is closer than it may feel. You don’t need the right words, the whole story, or a plan. You must reach out.

Domestic Violence Resources:

National Domestic Violence Hotline

• 24/7 confidential support (free):
• Call: 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) 
• Text: START to 88788 
• Chat: https://www.thehotline.org 
• Services: Immediate crisis support, Safety planning (leaving safely or staying safer), Shelter and housing referrals, Legal advocacy referrals (protective orders, custody, immigration-related DV support), Emotional support in multiple languages. 

Teen & Young Adult Relationship Abuse Resources:

Love is Respect

• For ages ~13–26 (dating violence support)
• Call: 1-866-331-9474 
• Text: LOVEIS to 22522 
• Chat: https://www.loveisrespect.org 
• Services: Psycho-education on dating violence, Emotional/online abuse, Healthy relationship education, and safety planning for teens & young adults. 

Native American & Alaska Native Survivors Resources:

Strong Hearts Native Helpline

• Call: 1-844-7NATIVE (1-844-762-8483)
• Text: 844-762-8483
• 24/7 confidential culturally grounded support 
• Chat: https://strongheartshelpline.org/
• Services: Peer Support, Advocacy, Psychoeducation of domestic violence, personalized Safety Plan, and Legal Advocacy referral. 

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References (APA 7th Edition)

Alhusen, J. L., Ray, E., Sharps, P., & Bullock, L. (2015). Intimate partner violence during pregnancy: Maternal and neonatal outcomes. Journal of Women’s Health, 24(1), 100–106. https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2014.4877

Campbell, J. C., Webster, D., Koziol-McLain, J., Block, C., Campbell, D., Curry, M. A., … Wilt, S. A. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93(7), 1089–1097. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.93.7.1089

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Intimate partner violence and pregnancy and infant health outcomes—Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, nine U.S. jurisdictions, 2016–2022. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 73(48), 1–10. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7348a1.htm

Devries, K. M., Kishor, S., Johnson, H., Stöckl, H., Bacchus, L. J., Garcia-Moreno, C., & Watts, C. (2010). Intimate partner violence during pregnancy: Analysis of prevalence data from 19 countries. Reproductive Health Matters, 18(36), 158–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(10)36533-5

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Specialized Support Resources
Postpartum Planning Class
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