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Sexual Orientation Disparities in Mistimed and Unwanted Pregnancy Among Adult Women
Author(s) -
Everett Bethany G.,
McCabe Katharine F.,
Hughes Tonda L.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
perspectives on sexual and reproductive health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.818
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1931-2393
pISSN - 1538-6341
DOI - 10.1363/psrh.12032
Subject(s) - unintended pregnancy , national survey of family growth , sexual minority , sexual orientation , pregnancy , lesbian , medicine , odds ratio , reproductive health , odds , demography , context (archaeology) , family planning , logistic regression , psychology , population , social psychology , environmental health , pathology , sociology , biology , psychoanalysis , research methodology , genetics , paleontology
CONTEXT Many sexual minority women, regardless of sexual identity, engage in heterosexual behavior across the life course, which provides them opportunities to experience an unintended pregnancy. In addition, sexual minority women are more likely than others to report characteristics that may make them vulnerable to unintended pregnancy. Little research, however, has examined whether the risk of unintended pregnancy is elevated among these women. METHODS Using data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth, logistic regression models were fitted to examine sexual orientation disparities in mistimed and unwanted pregnancies among 9,807 women aged 20–45; mixed‐effects hazard models assessed disparities in the intention status of 5,238 pregnancies among these women by maternal sexual orientation. RESULTS Compared with heterosexual women reporting only male partners, heterosexual women who have sex with women had higher odds of reporting a mistimed pregnancy (odds ratio, 1.4), and bisexual women had higher odds of reporting an unwanted pregnancy (1.8). When compared with pregnancies reported by heterosexual women with only male partners, those reported by heterosexual women who have sex with women were more likely to be mistimed (hazard ratio, 1.7), and those reported by bisexual and lesbian women were more likely to be unwanted (1.7–4.4). CONCLUSIONS Compared with heterosexuals who have sex with men only, adult sexual minority women are at equal or greater risk of reporting an unintended pregnancy. More research addressing the reproductive health care needs of sexual minority women is needed to develop strategies to improve family planning for this population.