Lo Que Pasó, Pasó (What happened, happened): Latina women's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about unintended pregnancy

Introduction: To date, reasons for higher rates of unintended pregnancy among Latinas are understudied. In order to understand the causes of disparities in unintended pregnancy rates, we must first explore the meaning of unintended pregnancy and consider cultural expectations and norms regarding pregnancy among Latinas.

Purpose: To explore Latinas’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about pregnancy, motherhood, and unintended pregnancy and the sociocultural factors identified as contributors to those beliefs. 

Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 U.S. born, English-speaking Latinas aged 18-25 years seeking a confirmation pregnancy test at clinics, in south Florida, some of which provided abortion services.

Results: Participants reported having an array of simultaneous and contradictory desires, beliefs, feelings, and experiences regarding pregnancy. These beliefs were related to complicated life situations, such as social and economic hardships, and were facilitated by Latino cultural beliefs, such as fatalism  religiosity, and familismo. The term unintended pregnancy elicited negative responses and the act of deliberately trying to plan a pregnancy was foreign to many of these women. 

Conclusions: Study findings point to the need for a new dialogue concerning public health’s current approach to family planning, which assumes that optimal pregnancies are deliberately planned, and that unintended pregnancies generally have more negative outcomes. These beliefs may not be relevant among all cultural and ethnic groups. Although this was a small, exploratory study, its findings suggest the need for a greater understanding of the multiple factors that shape the meaning of unintended pregnancy among Latinas.