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Further research is needed to understand the reasons for the adverse findings of this study and identify potentially changeable factors contributing to adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes for women with ID and/or self-reported learning difficulties and their children. To ensure quality antenatal care, health professionals may need to consider innovations such as extended consultation times, communication aids and audio-taping consultations.

The experience of pregnancy and motherhood, from a woman's point of view, has only been considered worthy of research in recent decades. In this time, a small number of studies have examined the experiences of mothers with intellectual disabilities. No study to date has focussed on the lived experiences of pregnancy for women with intellectual disabilities. This paper reports findings from a phenomenological study into becoming a mother for women with intellectual disabilities. We focus on the stories of three Australian women with intellectual disabilities about their experiences of being pregnant. Three key themes of the pregnancy experience for these women are illuminated. First, through experiencing their pregnant bodies the women began to understand themselves as mothers. Secondly, the women actively made decisions regarding how their baby would be cared for. Thirdly, the women involved trusted others in these important decisions. This paper gives voice to a group of marginalized women whose views about being pregnant have traditionally been silenced and/or ignored. Women with intellectual disabilities are commonly considered unfit to parent or likely to produce offspring with disabilities (McCarthy 1999) and have subsequently been afforded even less control over their own bodies than their non-disabled peers. Their reproductive capacity is commonly constructed as a burden requiring suppression or elimination, rather than a normal part of womanhood. Historically, routine segregation, enforced contraception and sterilization were measures used to prevent these women from having children in many Western countries (Bass 1963, Hillier, Johnson & Harrison 2002, Pfeiffer 1994). Although involuntary sterilization has now been ''officially'' abolished in many countries (Blackford 1993, Brady & Grover 1997, Walmsley 2000), unlawful sterilization procedures are still being performed in places such as Australia (The National Children's and Youth Law Centre and Defence for Children International (Australia) 2005). Furthermore, many women with

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