Purpose

India has the highest absolute number of maternal deaths, preterm birth cases, and under-5 mortality in the world, as well as high domestic violence (DV) rates. We sought to examine the impact of DV and its psychosocial correlates on pregnancy and birth outcomes.

Methods

Women seeking antenatal care in Tamil Nadu, South India (N = 150) were assessed during pregnancy, and birth outcomes were abstracted from medical records after the babies were born.

Results

We found that psychological abuse (OR 3.9; 95 % CI 1.19–12.82) and mild or greater depressive symptoms (OR 3.3; 95 % CI 0.99–11.17) were significantly associated with increased risk of preterm birth. Physical abuse was also associated with increased risk of preterm birth, but this was not statistically significant (OR 1.9; 95 % CI 0.59–6.19). In each of the above adjusted models, low maternal education was associated with increased risk of preterm birth, in the analysis with depressive symptoms OR 0.18, CI 0.04–0.86 and in the analyses with psychological abuse OR 0.19, CI 0.04–0.91.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that future research should focus on understanding the psychosocial antecedents to preterm birth, to better target interventions and improve maternal child health in limited resource settings.