Bad Moms and Blameless Dads: The Portrayal of Maternal and Paternal Age and Preconception Harm in U.S. Newspapers

Background: The public’s understanding of science is delivered mostly through mass media, which in turn impacts how people think about and use scientific and medical technologies in their daily lives. Therefore, it is important to understand how the media represents preconception harm, how accurately the science is described, and who is responsible for the harm as this information is likely to influence how individuals and couples view conception.

Methods: A content analysis was undertaken of 64 newspaper articles after systematic searching and selection of articles based on inclusion criteria. A coding framework was developed and used to analyze articles for tone. The body and title of articles were analyzed for one or more of 8 tones, which were correlated with the main article focus and gender of author.

Results: Most articles (59%) were maternally focused, 35% were paternally focused, and 6% were equally focused on both women and men. The most frequent maternal tones were informational (29%), demographics (18%), justice (15%), and anxiety (15%). The most frequent paternal tones were informational (25%), demographics (17%), surprise (17%) and reassurance (13%).

Conclusions: Most U.S. newspaper articles focused on maternal age related harms and were more likely to use negative tones for women. In contrast, paternal age related harms were less likely to be discussed and tended to include more reassuring tones. Authors of newspaper articles should employ more gender-neutral tones when discussing age related preconception harm.