Pregnancy planning and acceptance among Danish pregnant women

Objective. To study how living conditions influence pregnancy planning and acceptance among Danish women. Method A cross-sectional questionnaire study performed among 3516 pregnant women attending Odense University Hospital, Denmark. The study population c onsisted of women with spontaneous abortion, women with ectopic pregnancies , women attending antenatal care and women with induced abortion. They were divided into four groups: women with planned and accepted pregnancies (acc epting planners, n=2137), women who accepted an initially unplanned pregnan cy (accepting non-planners, n=1006), women who rejected an initially planne d pregnancy (rejecting planners, n=31), and women with unplanned and reject ed pregnancies (rejecting non-planners, n=342). The association between soc io-economic characteristics and pregnancy planning and acceptance was evalu ated by comparing accepting non-planners with accepting planners and by com paring rejecting planners with rejecting non-planners. The variables studie d comprise age, number of children, partner relationship, education, occupa tion, economic situation and contraceptives. Results. The characteristics of accepting non-planners and accepting planne rs were in accordance and in contrast to those of rejecting planners and in particular of rejecting non-planners. The contraceptive prevalence rate am ong accepting non-planners was 15%. Among rejecting non-planners the same f igure was 51%. Conclusion. Accepting non-planners seemed to be in a situation which could be considered appropriate for childbirth. The contraceptive prevalence rate among accepting non-planners was low and might reflect that these women we re not entirely against the thought of having a child, although they did no t actively plan to have one.