Nearly one in four US women are ambivalent about getting pregnant

May 13, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

New research has found that nearly one out of four women in the US is “OK either way” about getting or not getting pregnant.

While it’s generally true that with each generation of people attitudes shift, scientists like to know how and why. Enter Julia McQuillan, professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

McQuillan wanted to know how women in the U.S. view pregnancy now, so she gathered up a research team and set off to find out.

“We assumed 50 years after the pill, most women would be controlling their reproduction,” McQuillan told USA Today last week. But what she and her team found ran contrary to that assumption.

McQuillan and her team surveyed nearly 4,000 U.S. women between the ages of 25 and 45 who were sexually active. The team discovered that 23 percent of the women responded that they were “OK either away,” saying that they were neither trying to conceive nor trying to actively prevent conception.

“This finding dramatically challenges the idea that women are always trying, one way or another, to either get pregnant or not get pregnant,” said McQuillan of the results.

“It also shows that women who are OK either way should be assessed separately from women who are intentional about pregnancy.”

McQuillan suggested that doctors approach this special subset of women in a slightly different way rather than simply assuming that they don’t want children because they’re not actively trying.

“Clearly, many women are less intentional about pregnancy,” McQuillan told CNN. “Yet this group should be treated as if they will likely conceive and should therefore get recommendations such as ensuring adequate folic acid intake and limiting alcohol intake.”

The study found that 71 percent of the women surveyed were actively not trying while 6 percent were. Of the remaining ambivalent women, 73 percent stated that they would like to have a child. Curiously, this group also reported the highest number of children they thought ideal at 3.17 children on average.

The results of the study will appear in an upcoming issue of the Maternal and Child Health Journal.