The unwanted birth and the family planning service

Abstract

SummaryIn a survey in Coventry of 1079 post-natal patients, 11% (104) of married women and 46% (32) of single women stated that this birth was unwanted and emotionally distressing. The married women with unwanted births were the same age as other married women, but had substantially larger families. The single women with unwanted births were younger and all had left school at 16 years or below. Ten per cent of married women and 28% of single women with unwanted births had no knowledge of contraception and 28% of married women and 78% of single women with unwanted births had not used any contraceptive methods. Seventy-six per cent of married women and 78% of single women with unwanted births would have liked further professional advice.

Socio-economic factors associated with unwanted births to married women: a geographical analysis using census indicators

“…The number of children in the family is in most cases the most important factor in determining whether a birth is unwanted. In previous work (Brennan & Opit, 1974) only 4% of first births were unwanted, 6% of second births, 16% of third births and 21 % of births to women of higher parity. Woolf (1971) in her national study of family intentions shows that whereas only 1 % of women who had two living children considered that they had more children than they considered ideal, 73 % of women with four or more children said this was the case.…”

“…Affluence score: sum of normal deviates of (a) overcrowding (more than one per room), (b) proportion of non-owner occupiers, and (c) proportion with no car. mothers were also less likely to declare the birth unwanted (Brennan & Opit, 1974). The reasons for the higher proportion of unwanted births in Ward D are not known.…”

“…This finding was probably associated with an increase in the number of Indian immigrants in this ward, and this factor was probably also influential in the neighbouring ward to the south, as these * P < 0 1 0 ; * * P < 0 0 5 ; ***P< 0 0 1 . mothers were also less likely to declare the birth unwanted (Brennan & Opit, 1974). The reasons for the higher proportion of unwanted births in Ward D are not known.…”

“…Consequently, many couples still use unreliable methods which presumably increases the risk of an unwanted birth. It was shown in a previous paper (Brennan & Opit, 1974) that although threequarters of post-natal patients wanted further professional advice in order to restrict their fertility and over 10% wished to be sterilized, only one in five had received any advice at any time from a medical practitioner.…”

The ageing gamete in relation to birth control failures and Down syndrome

“…The latter indeed are known to need more time to become familiar with the more reliable methods of family planning [46,47,49]. Unplanned premarital conceptions in adolescent girls, very short birth intervals and particularly unplanned conceptions at advanced maternal age are all known to occur more frequently among members of low income groups, early school leavers and women living in over-crowded conditions [2,3,7,9]. In addition the association of delinquency with a wide spectrum of neurological deficits, such as EEG-abnormalities, epilepsy, minimal brain dysfunction etc., fits in with our gametopathy concept.…”