Pregnancy planning: prevalence and associated aspects

Abstract

The aims were to know the prevalence of and associated aspects to the planned pregnancy. Using the Brazilian version of the London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy, we classified the pregnancy of 126 women who had a positive urine pregnancy test in primary health centers in the city of Marília, São Paulo. The prevalence of planned pregnancy was 33.3% [25.2%-42.3%]. We found that age, partners age, living with a partner, having a previous pregnancy and a previous abortion or miscarriage were positively associated to the planning of the pregnancy. We conclude that planning a pregnancy is not frequent yet and is mainly determined by personal and relational contexts of a woman's life as well as by their reproductive history and not simply by contraception use or schooling, as it has been traditionally considered.