DYNAMICS OF PREGNANCY INTENTION AND PREGNANCY INCIDENCE AMONG PROFESSIONAL WOMEN

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To prospectively evaluate the dynamics of pregnancy intention and incidence of pregnancy among professional women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We followed 11,276 pre-menopausal non-pregnant women aged 19-45 years participating in the Nurses' Health Study 3 (2010-2021). Pregnancy intention and pregnancy status were assessed at baseline and every 3 months thereafter. Women who became pregnant during follow-up were asked to report their pregnancy intention at the time they conceived in a follow-up questionnaire administered at gestation week 20-25. RESULTS: At baseline, 898 (8%) women self-reported they were actively trying to conceive, 1285 (11%) self-reported they were not actively trying to conceive but thought they would be pregnant within 1 year, and the remaining 9093 (81%) self-reported they were neither trying to conceive nor thought they would be pregnant within 1 year. Women actively trying to conceive were more likely to be married or in a domestic partnership, nulliparous, and to have a higher educational achievement than women in the other two groups. We documented 870 self-reported pregnancies within 12 months of pregnancy intention assessment. The crude rates of pregnancy were 45%, 28%, and 1% for women in the three pregnancy intention groups, respectively. About 1 in 7 women changed their intention status during follow up. Among women reporting at baseline being actively trying to conceive who did not become pregnant during follow-up, 27% subsequently reported that they were neither trying nor thought they would become pregnant soon. The corresponding figure for women reporting at baseline they thought they might become pregnant soon was 33%. Conversely, among women reporting at baseline that they were neither trying nor thought they would become pregnant soon, 9% reported that they were either actively trying to conceive or thought they would become pregnant soon. Among women who became pregnant during follow-up, 79% reported that they were actively trying to get pregnant when they conceived, including 50% of women who at baseline reported they were not trying to conceive. CONCLUSIONS: Pregnancy intention is highly fluid among nurses and nursing students of reproductive age. Unsurprisingly, pregnancy intention is strongly associated with incidence of pregnancy. IMPACT STATEMENT Our findings suggest that pregnancy intention is highly fluid, and current approaches to assess this construct may not fully capture this fluidity. POSTER SESSION COVID-19.