Sexually abused domestic violence victims are at greater risk for death, says Baldwin-Johnson (Wood pp). Moreover, victims of domestic violence are at greater risk for mental health problems, such as panic attacks, eating disorders, depression, substance abuse, post traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, headaches, and gastrointestinal complaints (Wood pp). Furthermore, abused women are at high risk for suicide due to feelings of hopelessness and self-induced or attempted abortion (Wood pp).

             Prenatal care based studies report that from 4 - 26 percent of patients are violence victims before pregnancy, whereas 1 - 17 percent are violence victims during pregnancy (Martin pp). A review of studies that examined the prevalence of violence during pregnancy reported that most of the prevalence estimates ranged between 4 and 8 percent (Martin pp). Several studies have found that women who have been victimized either before or during pregnancy are more likely than other women to drink alcohol or use illicit drugs before and/or during pregnancy (Martin pp). Studies indicate that, during the year before pregnancy, women who were physically assaulted by their partners were somewhat more likely to drink alcohol compared with women who did not experience this type of violence, however, during pregnancy, women who were victims of violence were more likely to drink alcohol (Martin pp). In other words, women's alcohol use before pregnancy was somewhat more likely among those physically assaulted before pregnancy but was not more likely among those who experienced psychological aggression or sexual coercion before pregnancy (Martin pp). Alcohol use during pregnancy was more likely if the women experienced any of the types of violence during pregnancy, including psychological aggression (23 percent of the victims drank alcohol compared with none of the women who did not experience this violence), physical assault and sexual coercion (Martin pp).