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date: 14 February 2025

Pregnancy and Fertility Intentionslocked

Pregnancy and Fertility Intentionslocked

  • Karina ShrefflerKarina ShrefflerChild and Family Health Sciences, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Summary

Understanding pregnancy and fertility intentions is critical to project population accurately, to predict risk, and to intervene for maternal and child well-being outcomes. Although both pregnancy and fertility intentions refer to reproductive intentions, pregnancy intentions are typically a measure of retrospective reports about a specific pregnancy, whereas fertility intentions are typically a measure of assessing plans for future childbearing. Contemporary childbearing theories incorporate social-psychological and life course considerations. The measurement of intentions has become more nuanced, moving beyond a dichotomous measure of intended versus unintended, but additional work on measurement is needed on ambivalence, in particular. Despite progress in understanding pregnancy and fertility intentions and their predictors and consequences, unintended pregnancy rates remain high in the United States at the same time that the fertility gap between intentions and achieved fertility continues to widen globally.

Subjects

  • Sexual and Reproductive Health

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