Pregnancy and Disability: A Scoping Review of the Rehabilitation Counseling Literature

Pregnancy is a common occurrence for individuals with disabilities who want to parent, and thus establish a family with children. There has been limited research in rehabilitation counseling and psychology about the intersection of disability, pregnancy, and employment. The purpose of the study was to explore the breadth of extant rehabilitation counseling and psychology literature on pregnancy and disability. Nine search terms were used to search 8 rehabilitation counseling and psychology journals from January 1973 to March 2023. A total of 237 articles were found that had one of the search terms, and out of those 9 articles were assessed to be relevant for the discussion on disability and pregnancy. The results show a small, but longstanding call to promote a line of research to best support the independent living goals of pregnancy and parenthood for full community participation of people with chronic illness and disability.