Relationship between repeat unintended pregnancies and current family planning practice

Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. In 2002, the direct medical costs of unintended pregnancies were estimated to be almost five billion dollars. Moreover, women with unintended pregnancies tend to delay seeking prenatal care and, making the necessary life style changes for the fetus. Subsequently, unintended pregnancies have the potential to lead to low birthweight infants and potentially poorer long-term child development. Although there are negative consequences with unintended pregnancies, repeat unintended pregnancy imposes even greater health risks for both mothers and infants. To prevent unintended and repeat unintended pregnancies, family planning methods must be utilized effectively. Despite the potential risk associated with negative health outcome of mothers and infants, repeated unintended pregnancies have not been studied extensively. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the number of unintended pregnancies and patterns/methods of family planning practices. The National Statistics of Family Growth, cycle 6 (2002) was used for this secondary analysis. Correlations were found between repeat unintended pregnancies and the current family planning practice. The regression analysis explains a significant amount of the variance for this sample. Answers related to male and female practices are also interesting, and these are stratified by demographic and other related factors to identify high risk groups as well as predictors of the phenomenon. These study results have great implications for creating better strategies for family planning practices to target the high risk populations and areas for improvement related to contraceptive education and service delivery.