It's Not Planned, But Is It Okay? The Acceptability of Unplanned Pregnancy Among Young People

Gómez, Anu Manchikanti; Arteaga, Stephanie; Ingraham, Natalie; Arcara, Jennet; Villaseñor, Elodia

doi:10.1016/j.whi.2018.07.001

Cited by 57 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Indeed, we agree with Potter et al that pregnancy intentions as a binary constructintended vs. unintendedis a "long-recognized conceptual problem" [1]. Researchers have responded with efforts to expand conceptual categorization of pregnancy desires beyond these binary ones using existing survey data [4,7,10,17,36,[73][74][75] as well as qualitative studies to improve our understanding of how individuals express their orientations [5,6,8,9,16,17,21,23,36]. We support further efforts to develop more inclusive and accurate measures of pregnancy orientations.…”

Section: Broaden Measures Of Pregnancy Desires Beyond Intended and Unsupporting

confidence: 82%

Challenging unintended pregnancy as an indicator of reproductive autonomy: a response

Kost

Zolna

2019

Contraception

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(K. Kost). 1 We recognize that many trans men, gender-nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people also often need reproductive health care to either prevent or support pregnancy. Unfortunately, most data sources with pregnancy intentions measures do not allow researchers to identify these populations; some data sources do not even include these individuals. Because of these data limitations, we generally use the term "women" to describe the group of individuals for which we have data, but recognize that this does not necessarily include the experiences of everyone who is able to become pregnant. 2 While the issues raised throughout are relevant to ongoing discussions of how we approach research work globally, the extent of the expertise of the authors of this response necessarily limits our perspective to the body of research work focused on unintended pregnancy in the United States.

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Section: Broaden Measures Of Pregnancy Desires Beyond Intended and Unsupporting

confidence: 82%

Challenging unintended pregnancy as an indicator of reproductive autonomy: a response

Kost

Zolna

2019

Contraception

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“…For others, an unexpected pregnancy would be acceptable; that is, though the timing might be less than ideal, it would be considered okay or even welcomed. An earlier analysis of these data found that 37% of participants would find a pregnancy they did not desire acceptable for a host of reasons, including relationship dynamics, parenting experiences and perceived lack of agency regarding pregnancy …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Misclassification of Ambivalence in Pregnancy Intentions: A Mixed‐Methods Analysis

Gómez

Arteaga

Villaseñor

et al. 2019

Perspect Sexual Reproductive

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CONTEXT Researchers have developed various measures of pregnancy ambivalence in an effort to capture the nuance overlooked by conventional, binary measures of pregnancy intention. However, the conceptualization and operationalization of the concept of ambivalence vary widely and may miss the complexity inherent in pregnancy intentions, particularly for young people, among whom unintended pregnancy rates are highest. METHODS To investigate the utility and accuracy of current measures of pregnancy ambivalence, a mixed‐methods study was conducted with 50 young women and their male partners in northern California in 2015–2016. Survey data were used to descriptively analyze six existing pregnancy ambivalence measures; in‐depth interviews addressing pregnancy desires and plans were deductively coded and thematically analyzed to understand why some participants appeared to be ambivalent from the survey data when their interview responses suggested otherwise. RESULTS Eighty participants would be considered ambivalent by at least one measure. After assessment of the interview data, however, these measures were deemed to have misclassified almost all (78) participants. Qualitative analysis revealed several themes regarding misclassification: conflation of current pregnancy desires with expected postconception emotional responses; acceptability of an undesired pregnancy; tempering of survey responses to account for partners’ desires; perceived lack of control regarding pregnancy; and, among participants with medical conditions perceived to impact fertility, subjugation of pregnancy desires in the interest of self‐protection. CONCLUSIONS Current approaches to measuring pregnancy ambivalence may fail to capture the intricacies of pregnancy intentions and may be ineffective if they do not account for young people's experiences, especially when used to inform clinical practice, programs and policy.

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“…Moreover, while pregnancy ambivalence has been used to capture any pregnancies in the in-between or grey area, the concept actually captures conflicting or uncertain desires towards pregnancy [23,26], which is not reflected in our participant’s descriptions of the in-between status of pregnancy planning . Rather, they described instances of pregnancy acceptability regardless of desire, as well as not trying for but also not avoiding pregnancy [3,4,34]. Importantly, pregnancy acceptability should not be construed as being in the middle of planned and unplanned on a linear spectrum [36].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dichotomous concepts of “planned” and “unplanned” pregnancy are widely used to guide family planning practice and research, despite evidence suggesting that these terms may not accurately reflect some women’s experiences of or feelings toward pregnancy [1–4]. This mismatch between patient and provider conceptualizations of unplanned pregnancy likely constrains reproductive health care interactions and decision making, as providers may perpetuate normative notions of pregnancy planning that alienate some patients [5–7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planned, unplanned and in-between: the meaning and context of pregnancy planning for young people

2019

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It's Not Planned, But Is It Okay? The Acceptability of Unplanned Pregnancy Among Young People

Cited by 57 publications

References 27 publications

Challenging unintended pregnancy as an indicator of reproductive autonomy: a response

Challenging unintended pregnancy as an indicator of reproductive autonomy: a response

The Misclassification of Ambivalence in Pregnancy Intentions: A Mixed‐Methods Analysis

Planned, unplanned and in-between: the meaning and context of pregnancy planning for young people

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