Pregnancy Preparation Among Women and Their Partners in the UK: How Common Is It and What Do People Do?

Figures & data

Table 1. Characteristics of all women and the women within each pregnancy intention group (“trying,” “thinking,” and “maybe thinking”).

Variable	All women N = 274	Trying n = 80 (29.2%)	Thinking n = 96 (35%)	Maybe thinking n = 97 (35.4%)	p value
Age
Mean (SD)	32 (5.1)	32.8 (5.4)	32.4 (3.9)	30.4 (6.1)	.012
Range	16-47	21-47	21-41	16-42
Education
Below undergraduate	38 (14.13%)	13 (16.2%)	7 (7.6%)	17 (17.7%)	.534
Undergraduate or above	231 (85.9%)	67 (83.8%)	85 (92.4%)	79 (82.3%)
Relationship status
No relationship	12 (4.41%)	1 (1.3%)	1 (1.1%)	9 (9.4%)	<.001
Relationship	67 (24.6%)	19 (23.7%)	15 (15.8%)	33 (34.4%)
Married	193 (71.0%)	60 (75.0%)	79 (83.1%)	54 (56.2%)
Previous pregnancy
0	79 (28.8%)	22 (27.5%)	22 (22.9%)	34 (35.0%)	.086
1	88 (32.1%)	23 (28.8%)	33 (34.4%)	32 (33.0%)
2+	107 (39.1%)	35 (43.7%)	41 (42.7%)	31 (32.0%)
Ethnicity
White	236 (87.1%)	68 (85.0%)	87 (91.6%)	80 (84.2%)	.801
BAME	35 (12.9%)	12(15.0%)	8 (8.4%)	15 (15.8%)
Religious
Yes	116 (42.7%)	36 (45.0%)	41 (43.2%)	39 (40.6%)	.517
No	156 (57.4%)	44 (55.0%)	54 (56.8%)	57 (59.4%)
English first language
Yes	249 (91.6%)	76 (95.0%)	86 (90.5%)	86 (90.5%)	.223
No	23 (8.5%)	4 (5.0%)	9 (9.5%)	10 (9.5%)

Note : BAME, Black, Asian, and minority ethnic.

Bold indicates a significant p value.

Table 2. The average Desire to Avoid Pregnancy (DAP) score for the pregnancy intention groups.

	Pregnancy intention
	Trying	Thinking	Maybe thinking	p value
Average DAP score (range)	0.82 (0–1.86)	1.4 (0–2.79)	1.8 (0.29–3.64)	<.001

Figure 1. The preparations that women and their partners reportedly made in preparation for pregnancy (%).

Figure 2. Reasons given for why women and their partners were not preparing for pregnancy.

Table 3. Univariate and multivariable linear regressions of characteristics associated with pregnancy preparation.

	Univariate analysis			Multivariable analysis
Variable	OR	95% CI	p value	OR	95% CI	p value
Age, years	1.03	0.98–1.08	.262
Education	Below degree level as baseline
Undergraduate degree or above	1.05	0.53–2.08	.898
Relationship status	No relationship as baseline
Relationship	3.82	0.78–18.72	.047
Married	5.60	1.2–26.25
Previous pregnancy	0 as baseline
1	0.85	0.46–1.56	.861
2+	0.96	0.53–1.71
Ethnicity	White as baseline
BAME	0.98	0.48–1.99	.949
Religious	No as baseline
Yes	1.29	0.80–2.09	.294
English first language	No as baseline
Yes	1.27	0.54–3.00
DAP	0.22	0.15–0.34	<.001	0.22	0.15–0.34	<.001

Note : BAME = Black, Asian and minority ethnic; DAP = Desire to Avoid Pregnancy scale.

Bold indicates a significant p value.

Table 4. Univariate and multivariable linear regressions of characteristics associated with partner preparation.

	Univariate analysis			Multivariable analysis
Variable	OR	95% CI	p value	OR	95% CI	p value
Age, years	0.91	0.82–1.01	.063
Education	Below degree level as baseline
Undergraduate degree or above	0.51	0.15–1.72	.275
Relationship status	Not married as baseline
Married	0.52	0.17–1.52	.231
Previous pregnancy	0 as baseline
1	0.47	0.13–1.72	.431
2+	0.53	0.17–1.64
Ethnicity	White as baseline
BAME	0.27	0.03–2.25	.227
Religion belong	No as baseline
Yes	0.63	0.23–1.69	0.353
English first language	No as baseline
Yes	0.98	0.10–9.98
DAP	0.13	0.03–0.48	.002	0.13	0.03–0.48	.002

Note : BAME = Black, Asian, and minority ethnic; DAP = Desire to Avoid Pregnancy scale.

Bold indicates a significant p value.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in UCL Research Data Repository, DOI: 10.5522/04/23390072.