COVID-19 challenges and pregnancy desire among married/ in-union women in Kano and Lagos States, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This study examined the influence of COVID-19-induced challenges on pregnancy desire among married/in-union women of reproductive age in Lagos and Kano states, Nigeria. The performance monitoring for action (PMA) data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multilevel regression. About 12% of women desired no pregnancy; 43% would feel happy and unhappy respectively, if pregnancy occurred during the pandemic, while 13.9% would have mixed feelings. COVID-19 concern was associated with no pregnancy desire (OR = 1.14; CI = 1.05–1.24) but negatively associated with feeling happy (RRR: 0.83; CI: 0.71–0.98). Experience of partial household income loss was negatively associated with having mixed feelings (RRR = 0.30; CI = 0.13–0.69). Experience of complete income loss was negatively associated with feeling happy and mixed feelings respectively. In each state, women with COVID-19 concerns and household income loss should be empowered to prevent unwanted pregnancies and their attendant negative reproductive and mental health consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Fertility
• married women
• COVID-19
• pandemic
• Nigeria

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the Centre for Research, Evaluation Resources and Development (CRERD) (with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health (at Johns Hopkins University) and JHPIEGO) for the approval to use the data.

Data availability statement

The data are freely obtainable from the PMA website: https://datalab.pmadata.org/user/login?destination=download-requests/dataset.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).