Married Women with Unintended Pregnancies in Egypt: Attributes and Circumstances

  Unmet need is one of the major issues in studying fertility changes and the evaluation of the efficiency of family planning programs. At the core of the unmet needs lies its articulation in unintended pregnancies. While the study of unmet needs has gained much attention in the literature, the issue of unintended pregnancies is under-examined and commonly discussed in terms of teenage and out of wedlock pregnancies. In this paper, women who are bearing unintended pregnancies are examined in order to identify their main characteristics and the way to decrease the reoccurrence of these pregnancies. Using data from the 1995 Demographic and Health Survey, the results show that unintended pregnancies are common among women older than 30 years of age with more than three children who were born within short birth intervals. They also show a substantial impact of the sex composition of children on unintended pregnancies. Women with all her children from the same sex are less likely to perceive their current pregnancy unintended.
The circumstances surrounding the conception of unintended pregnancy shows it wide spread among ever users who stopped using due to fear of side effects or health concern as well as methods' failure. They also show that among never users, the event unintended pregnancy increase those women intentions to use contraceptive in the near future. The results also stressed the importance of the women's partner in their fertility plans.