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Results for “Unwanted Births”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Condom use within marriage: a neglected HIV intervention.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the contraceptive effectiveness of condoms versus oral contraceptive pills and estimate the reproductive consequences of a major shift from pill to condom use. METHODS: Secondary analysis was performed on nationally representative cross-sectional surveys of women in 16 developing countries. FINDINGS: In the 16 countries, the median per cent of married couples currently using condoms was 2%, compared with 13% for the pill. Condom users reported a higher 12-month failure and higher method-related discontinuation rates than pill users (9% and 44% vs 6% and 30%, respectively). Condom users were more likely to report subsequent abortion following failure (21% vs 14%), and also more likely to switch rapidly to another method (76% vs 58%). The reproductive consequences, in terms of abortion and unwanted births, of a hypothetical reversal of the relative prevalence of condom and pill were estimated to be minor. The main reason for this unexpected result is that the majority of abortions and unwanted births arise from non-use of any contraceptive method. CONCLUSION: A massive shift from the more effective oral contraceptive pills to the less effective condom would not jeopardize policy goals of reducing abortions and unwanted births. However, such a shift would potentially have an added benefit of preventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections, especially in countries with generalized HIV epidemics.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Desired and excess fertility in Europe and the United States: indirect estimates from World Fertility Survey data.

This paper presents indirect estimates of desired family size and unwanted births for married and cohabiting women in 12 European countries and the US. An econometric model for censored discrete data is used to estimate the distribution of desired family size from individual observations on children ever-born and total expected births. The data are from the UNECE Comparative Fertility Study of WFS surveys for Europe and the US and originated in national surveys between April 1975-December 1979. Estimates of the bivariate distribution of cumulative and desired fertility are used to compute the proportion of women with excess fertility and the average number of unwanted births for each country. The indirect estimates are compared with those from an analysis of survey responses to questions about desired and unwanted births. Multivariate modes that control for the effects of marriage duration, age at marriage, education, employment status, work experience, and total family income are also reported.

Americas↗
PubMed2006

The causes of stalling fertility transitions.

An examination of fertility trends in countries with multiple DHS surveys found that in the 1990s fertility stalled in midtransition in seven countries: Bangladesh, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kenya, Peru, and Turkey. In each of these countries fertility was high (more than six births per woman) in the 1950s and declined to fewer than five births per woman in the early or mid-1990s, before stalling. The level of stalling varied from 4.7 births per woman in Kenya to 2.5 births per woman in Turkey. An analysis of trends in the determinants of fertility revealed a systematic pattern of leveling off or near leveling in a number of determinants, including contraceptive use, the demand for contraception, and number of wanted births. The stalling countries did not experience significant increases in unwanted births or in the unmet need for contraception during the late 1990s, and program effort scores improved slightly, except in the Dominican Republic. These findings suggest no major deterioration in contraceptive access during the stall, but levels of unmet need and unwanted births are relatively high, and improvements in access to family planning methods would, therefore, be desirable. No significant link was found between the presence of a stall and trends in socioeconomic development, but at the onset of the stall the level of fertility was low relative to the level of development in all but one of the stalling countries.

Birth Rate↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Racial fertility differences: the role of female employment and education in wanted and unwanted childbearing.

This paper employs data from a merged sample of the National Surveys of Family Growth to examine how female employment status conditions the relationship between education and wanted and unwanted births among African American and white women. A rationale is presented for why a minority group status hypothesis that posits lower fertility among more highly educated African American women as compared to similar white women might find support in the case of wanted births and among certain women, including earlier birth cohorts. Our results provide some evidence for these ideas as well as evidence for a social characteristics hypothesis that predicts convergence of childbearing with rising education. However, persistently higher levels of unwanted births among African American women of all educational levels suggest that the dynamics of racial fertility differences are more complex than either of the hypotheses imply.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1988

Family relation and social competence of children unwanted at birth. A follow-up study at the age of 16.

The children of mothers who said during the pregnancy that the child was not wanted were followed up to age of 16. The material is based on a 14 year follow-up of 96.5% of all the births in Northern Finland in 1966. Controls from the 1966 data are assigned to the unwanted children who are matched with them in sex, age and parity. The number of children and marital and social status of the mother were matched, also taking into account the change in these variables between 1966 and 1980. The differences between the unwanted and control children were not dramatic, but there was a consistent difference between the unwanted girls and their controls, especially in their relations with their fathers, the unwanted girls perceiving their fathers to have been more hostile, more inconsistent in educational practice and less positive. The unwanted girls were rated lower by their teachers in personal behaviour and their relationships with schoolmates. They were more often reluctant to go to school, wanting to leave at the earliest possible age. No such differences were noted between the unwanted and control boys.

Achievement↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Understanding U.S. fertility: continuity and change in the National Survey of Family Growth, 1988-1995.

About 50 studies based on the 1988 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and a telephone reinterview conducted with the same women two years later provide continuing information about the fertility and health of American women. Among the findings of these studies are that black women have almost twice as many pregnancies as do white women (5.1 vs. 2.8), with nearly all of the difference being unintended pregnancies. Unwanted births increased between 1982 and 1988, particularly among less-educated, poor and minority women. This increase in the proportion of unwanted births may have prompted the increase in female sterilization among these groups. Concern with the AIDS epidemic led to increases in condom use between 1982 and 1990, especially among the partners of teenagers and college-educated women. Rates of teenage pregnancy were fairly stable during the period 1980-1988, as increases in the proportion of teenagers having intercourse were offset by increases in condom use. Rates of infertility did not change significantly in the 1980s, but because of delayed childbearing and the aging of the baby-boom cohort, the number of older childless women increased substantially. The 1995 NSFG was redesigned in a number of ways in order to answer a new generation of questions about fertility and women's health in the United States.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Unwanted and mistimed births in the United States: 1968--1973.

Unwanted U.S. marital fertility was down to just nine percent by 1973. The largest proportion of unwanted births was reported by poor black women--23 percent--but this group registered the steepest decline in unwanted childbearing of all the poverty-status and racial groups studied.

Family Planning Services↗
PubMed2003

Unmet need and unintended fertility: longitudinal evidence from upper Egypt.

CONTEXT: Although unmet need for family planning is a standard measure for evaluating programs' effectiveness in meeting the reproductive needs of individuals, its validity and accuracy in identifying women most at risk of unintended pregnancy have been questioned. METHODS: Women who participated in the 1995 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey in two governorates in Upper Egypt (Assuit and Souhag) were followed for two years (N=2,444); in-depth data on their fertility preferences, contraceptive use and births were gathered in 1996 and 1997. Transitions among contraceptive need categories from 1995 to 1997 are examined, and rates of unintended (mistimed and unwanted) births are calculated according to contraceptive need status at baseline. RESULTS: In the aggregate, unmet need increased by six percentage points, from 28% to 34%. This change was the net outcome of 14% moving out of unmet need and 20% moving into unmet need (i.e., substantial satisfaction of unmet need was offset by increased demand for contraception). The rate of unintended fertility was far higher among women with unmet need at baseline than among contraceptive users in 1995. Women with unmet need made up about one-quarter of the baseline sample, but they contributed almost one-half of mistimed and unwanted births during the two years. The majority of unintended births were to women who had never practiced contraception, whereas fewer than one-fifth were to women with recent contraceptive experience (including contraceptive failure). CONCLUSIONS: : Unmet need for family planning remains a useful tool for identifying and targeting women at high risk of unintended pregnancy.

Contraceptive Agents↗
PubMed1999

Unwanted childbearing, health, and mother-child relationships.

This paper investigates the relationships among unwanted childbearing, health, and mother-child relationships. We hypothesize that unwanted childbearing affects mother-child relationships in part because of the physical and mental health consequences of unwanted childbearing. Impaired mental health hampers women's interaction with their infants, and these poor neonatal relationships translate into poor mother-adult child relationships. Using the Intergenerational Panel Study of Mothers and Children--a 31-year longitudinal survey of a probability sample of 1,113 mother-child pairs begun in 1961--we demonstrate that mothers with unwanted births have lower quality relationships with their children from late adolescence (age 18) throughout early adulthood (ages 23 and 31). Furthermore, these lower quality relationships are not limited to the child born as a result of the unwanted pregnancy; all the children in the family suffer. Using the 1987-88 wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, a survey of a national probability sample of U.S. households, we show that mothers with unwanted births suffer from higher levels of depression and lower levels of happiness. We also demonstrate that they spank their young children more and spend less leisure time with them. We conclude that experiencing unwanted childbearing reduces the time and attention that mothers give their young children and that these early mother-child interactions set the stage for long-term, lower quality relationships.

Adolescent↗