Female infant mortality linked to violence against mothers

A recent study,led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH),has revealed that deaths of millions of female infants and children in India are related to domestic violence against their mothers.

A recent study,led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH),has revealed that deaths of millions of female infants and children in India are related to domestic violence against their mothers.

According to the study published in the recent issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine journal,mortality is greater among infants whose mothers experienced intimate partner violence. Deaths of 1.8 million female infants and children in India over the past 20 years are related to domestic violence against their mothers. In their examination of over 158,000 births occurring between December 1985 and August 2005,the researchers found that husbands violence against wives increased the risk of death among female children,but not male children,in both the first year and the first five years of life.

Being born a girl into a family in India in which your mother is abused makes it significantly less likely that you will survive early childhood. Shockingly,this violence does not pose a threat to your life if you are lucky enough to be born a boy, said lead author Jay Silverman,associate professor of society,human development and health at HSPH.

The authors attribute this disparity to lower investment in girl children in nutrition,immunisation and care for major causes of infant and child death. This neglect of girl infants and children is likely to be most pronounced in families in which the status of women is the lowest,that is,in those families in which women are physically abused by their husbands. At present,2.1 million children die in India every year,and the nation is not on track to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of a two-thirds reduction in child mortality from 1990 levels by 2015.