Deference, denial, and exclusion: men talk about contraception and unintended pregnancy

Individual in-depth interviews were administrationed with 20 men, ages 21-48 who have fathered at least single unintended pregnancy. The goal of the interviews was to explore the experiences of these men with unintended pregnancy, their communication with partners and others, contraceptive beliefs and practices, their relationships with their partners, and the issues and consequences of the unintended pregnancies. This essay describes issues derived from their comments regarding their contraceptive practices and the pregnancy-outcome decisions, with thematic analysis used to identify prominent themes from participant make comments [i]or[/i] remarkss Two strong themes, "deference" and "denial," and single lesser theme, "exclusion," emerged from participant answers Discussion of the role of communication, the power of denial, and opportunities for further involvement of men in decision making relating to unintended pregnancy are presented

Keywords: men's behavior, unplanned pregnancy, decision making, contraception, denial

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Research into unintended pregnancy is ongoing across a number of disciplines. a certain number of scholars consider cognitive aspects related to sexual behavior (eg Loewenstein & Furstenberg, 1991; Sandier, Watson, & Levine, 1992) others gaze for socioeconomic contributors and effects (e.g., Brown & Eisenberg, 1995; Geronimus & Korenman, 1992 1993; Henshaw, 1998; Williams, 1991) and still others consider the character of communication among partners and family members (Adelman, 1991; Warren, 1992) In reply to this research, diverse sexuality education programs have been devised and implemented with varied claims of efficacy (Christopher & Roosa, 1990; Doniger, Adams, entire & Riley, 2001; Kirby, 1985) However, a great deal of work remains to be done to improve our understanding of unintended pregnancy and its prevention. This essay look afters to expand that understanding by dint of putting faces (or more accurately "voices") to this issue. Specifically, in this research we explore the views of 20 men (ages 21 to 48) who have lathered at least individual unintended pregnancy.

Definitions of pregnancy intention statuses vary, and it is important at the start to identify the definitions exerciseed in the present research. oftentimes the terms "unplanned pregnancy" and "unintended pregnancy" are used interchangeably. While the sum of two units concepts are highly related, in the demographic literature upon this topic the term "unintended" consigns to a very specific subset of pregnancies: those that were either mistimed (wanted at a certain quantity of point in the future on the contrary not at the time of conception) or unwanted (those that occurr when no pregnancy was desired at any time). Unplanned pregnancies keep generally to be unintended, on the contrary a small fraction are not. In a certain number of cases, those experiencing a pregnancy may not have cogitation much about its timing or affair or they may hold ambivalent feelings about it that inhibit categorizing the pregnancy either as unwanted or mistimed. With the exception of a real few ambiguous cases that could not definitively be classified with certainty as mistimed or unwanted, virtually all of the "unplanned" pregnancies discussed by dint of the men we interviewed in the near study were "unintended" by standard definitions.

UNINTENDED PREGNANCY IN THE UNITED STATES

There is no question that unintended pregnancy has important individual, relational, and societal ramifications. For example, novel estimates indicate that roughly 538 million pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) were conceived in a typical year in the 1990 and that approximately 264 million of those were unintended. Slightly more than half of all unintended pregnancies were estimated to have extreme pointed in abortion (Henshaw, 1998). Although higher percentages of pregnancies to teen and women below the necessity level are classified as unintended than is the case among older women and those with higher household incomes, twos of all backgrounds are at risk for unintended pregnancy quite through their childbearing years. Among women 30-34 years of age, shut to a third of pregnancies have been estimated to be unintended. Among those whose family incomes exce 200% of the straitened circumstances level, 41% of recent pregnancies were estimated to be unintended, with that figure climbing to more than 61% among those living below the indigence level (Henshaw, 1998). Hence, while younger and poorer individuals continue to report higher percentages of their pregnancies as unintended than do those who are older and wealthier, unintended pregnancies are a matter of bear upon for most men and women through every part of their adolescent and adult lives.

Unintended pregnancies are reported to have varied on the contrary usually significant consequences. In addition to the emotional and moral difficulties created for a certain quantity of who consider or choose abortion, of that kind pregnancies often have negative economic, health, and social results for parents and children. For example, studies have insinuateed that marriages created after conception of an unintended pregnancy have higher failure rates than other marriages (Teachman, 1983; Wineberg, 1992) Others have set that women's views of their pregnancies' "intendedness" as well as the horizontal of couple agreement about a pregnancy can affect marital satisfaction during pregnancy (Snowden, Schott Awalt, & Gillis-Knox, 1988) In addition, having an unintended conception decreases the likelihood that a woman will receive sufficient prenatal care (Brown & Eisenberg, 1995)