Women's Life Experiences and Shifting Reports of Pregnancy Planning

Unplanned pregnancy is associated with adverse consequences for women. Yet, these associations are typically based on women's reports of pregnancy planning provided post birth. Therefore, women's recollection of their pregnancy planning may be influenced by their adverse life circumstances following the pregnancy, artificially driving these associations.

To understand how post-birth experiences pattern women's recall of their pregnancy planning, we conducted 17 in-depth interviews with young women (24-34 years old) enrolled in a longitudinal study in southern Malawi. Respondents who were pregnant at the time of data collection in 2015 answered close-ended questions about the planning of their pregnancy. During in-depth interviews three years later, women discussed their life experiences since the pregnancy and were re-asked a subset of the same questions about the planning of the 2015 pregnancy. We thematically coded respondents' narratives about their relationships, parenting, and economic situations in the three years following their pregnancy and mapped these onto changes in women's pre- and post-birth reports of their pregnancy planning.

More than one-half of respondents recalled their pregnancy planning differently than they did pre-birth-some as more planned, others as less planned. The presence and direction of women's changing reports were patterned by the quality of their relationship with the child's father, the father's involvement as a partner and parent, and their economic situation.

Women's life experiences following a birth correspond with changes in their pregnancy planning reports, emphasizing the limitations of using retrospective measures to study the consequences of unplanned fertility.