ABC News: Why Pregnant Women Become Murder Victims
These cases seem to support studies from recent years that have found that homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women outside of medical complications.
According to a 2001 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately 20 percent of Maryland women who died during pregnancy were murdered. This supported the findings of previous studies in Cook County, Ill., and New York.
Experts and women's advocates are not surprised to find that pregnant women are especially prone to violent deaths. In many cases, pregnant women are killed by their husbands or significant others.



Murder: The Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women
Among all murders of women across the country in 2000—the most recent yearly statistics available from the U.S. Department of Justice—more than 33 percent were killed by an intimate partner.