Neurodevelopmental Delays in Infants.

• Position: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

While assessing a pregnant patient with premature labor in 1983, Linda Bullock noticed bruises on the woman. When she asked what happened, the woman said a refrigerator had fallen on her while cleaning the kitchen.

"Something didn't seem right, but I didn't know what to say at the time. I just went on to the next question of the assessment," admits Bullock, now a professor emerita at the University of Missouri School of Nursing. 'We stopped her labor and sent her home, but I will bet my last dollar I sent her back to an abusive relationship, and it sparked my interest in helping other nurses assist battered women. What we didnt know at the time was the impact violence had on the baby."

Bullock helped implement the Domestic Violence Enhanced Perinatal Home Visits (DOVE) program in rural Missouri, which empowered safety planning and reduced domestic violence for hundreds of abused pregnant women. After learning from home health visits that many of the abused women had up to nine different romantic partners during and following pregnancy, Bullock conducted a study to examine the impact of multiple father figures on the cognitive development of the newborn infants.

After administering neurodevelopmental tests during home visits three, six, and 12 months after birth, she was surprised to find the infants of women who had only one male partner who abused them had worse cognitive outcomes compared to infants of women with...