Death and Desirability: Retrospective Reporting of Pregnancy Intention after a Child’s Death

• In Event: 149 - Regular Session. Fertility: Childbearing Decisions, Regrets, and Reassessments

Abstract

Unintended pregnancy is an important component of social stratification that has profound implications for women, children, and families. The extensive literature on pregnancy intentionality has raised questions of how to accurately measure such a subjective concept. Most studies rely on women’s retrospective reports of intentionality after the child’s birth, meaning that maternal experiences could influence women’s response. Despite recognition of this possibility, little research has considered whether birth outcomes influence women’s retrospective accounts. In many low-income regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the death of a young child remains a common birth outcome, which likely influences women’s account of the pregnancy. Despite evidence that unintended pregnancy is associated with worse child health, because of norms surrounding maternal responsibility for child wellbeing and the stigma of a child’s death, matched with the accompanying emotional trauma, we hypothesize that women will be less likely to declare deceased children as the result of unintended pregnancies. To test this hypothesis, we make use of 31 Demographic and Health Surveys from sub-Saharan Africa—where both unintended pregnancy and child death remain common aspects of motherhood—to estimate multilevel multinomial logistic regression models that compare the likelihood of women reporting a pregnancy as wanted, mistimed, or unwanted by the child’s survival status. The study findings have important implications for future research on unintended fertility in high-mortality settings, and more generally highlight child death as an experience that colors women’s reflection of their reproductive experiences and desires, and one that deserves greater attention in sociological research.

Authors

• Emily Smith-Greenaway, Pennsylvania State University

• Christie Sennott, Purdue University