Maternal attitude toward pregnancy and the risk of neonatal death.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES. Reduced options for fertility control over the past decade have increased the rates of unwanted pregnancy. We evaluated whether a woman's negative attitude toward her pregnancy increased the risk of perinatal mortality, in a large, prospective cohort study. METHODS. The association between attitude toward the pregnancy and perinatal mortality was evaluated in a longitudinal cohort study of 8823 married, pregnant patients enrolled from 1959 to 1966 in the Child Health and Development Studies. RESULTS. Women who reported during the first trimester of prenatal care that the pregnancy was unwanted were more than two times more likely to deliver infants who died within the first 28 days of life than were women reporting accepted pregnancies. A positive attitude toward pregnancy was not associated with fetal death or post-neonatal death. CONCLUSIONS. These data, collected when induced abortions were illegal, may have important implications for the 1990s. If maternal attitude toward the pregnancy is associated with neonatal mortality and abortion laws change such that access is restricted, infant mortality may increase because a greater proportion of births will be unwanted.

Death and Desirability: Retrospective Reporting of Unintended Pregnancy After a Child’s Death

“…Children from unintended pregnancies even experience a higher risk of death in settings as diverse as the United States (Bustan and Coker 1994), Bangladesh (Chalasani, Casterline and Koenig 2007), and India (Singh, Singh and Mahapatra 2013). Though selection could account for some of this association (Bishai et al 2015), these studies offer compelling evidence that children from unintended pregnancies experience long-lasting, severe consequences.…”

Has Roe v. Wade Reduced U.S. Crime Rates?

“…This research generally suggests that when children from wanted pregnancies are compared to those from mistimed or entirely unwanted pregnancies, the latter two groups fare worse. Unwanted (and in many instances, mistimed) pregnancy is positively associated with disadvantageous outcomes like low birth weight (Kost, Landry, and Darroch 1998), delayed prenatal care (Kost et al 1998;Marsiglio and Mott 1988;Pulley et al 2002), maternal smoking during pregnancy (Joyce et al 2000;Weller, Eberstein, and Bailey 1987), and even perinatal mortality (Bustan and Coker 1994). It is, on the other hand, negatively associated with advantageous outcomes such as breast-feeding (David 1981;Joyce et al 2000;Marsiglio and Mott 1988;Pulley et al 2002), doctor visits during the early months of life (Kost et al 1998;Marsiglio and Mott 1988), and some aspects of cognitive development (Baydar 1995;Joyce et al 2000).…”

The Contraceptive Needs of Incarcerated Women

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