IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v32y1991i3p241-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The mental health of women 6 months after they give birth to an unwanted baby: A longitudinal study

Author

Listed:
  • Najman, J. M.
  • Morrison, J.
  • Williams, G.
  • Andersen, M.
  • Keeping, J. D.

Abstract

This study reports a longitudinal prospective study of the impact of an unwanted pregnancy on the mental health of the mother. Data are derived from a Brisbane, Australian sample of 8556 mothers who were enrolled at their first clinic visit (mean gestation 18 weeks) and then interviewed again some 3-5 days after the birth and when the baby was 6 months of age. Standard scales of mental health were administered on each of these occasions and mothers whose babies were unwanted were compared with the rest of the sample. The results indicate that mothers of unwanted children have somewhat higher rates of anxiety and depression than the comparison group, but that the magnitude of the mental health differences between the two groups: (a) diminishes over the period of the follow-up, (b) may be partly attributable to the prior poor mental health of women giving birth to an unplanned and unwanted baby, (c) is such that relatively few women who give birth to an unwanted baby experience mental health problems. The paper considers the implications of these results for health planners, notes the absence of contrary data and the need to acknowledge that these results may reflect situational factors which are characteristic of but not necessarily limited to Brisbane.

Suggested Citation

  • Najman, J. M. & Morrison, J. & Williams, G. & Andersen, M. & Keeping, J. D., 1991. "The mental health of women 6 months after they give birth to an unwanted baby: A longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 241-247, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:32:y:1991:i:3:p:241-247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(91)90100-Q
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bayer, Ya'akov M. & Ruffle, Bradley J. & Shtudiner, Zeev & Zultan, Ro'i, 2018. "Costly superstitious beliefs: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 30-43.
    2. Jennifer Barber & Patricia East, 2011. "Children’s Experiences After the Unintended Birth of a Sibling," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 101-125, February.
    3. Maximova, Katerina & Quesnel-Vallée, Amélie, 2009. "Mental health consequences of unintended childlessness and unplanned births: Gender differences and life course dynamics," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 850-857, March.
    4. Caroline Sten Hartnett & Rachel Margolis, 2019. "Births that are Later-than-Desired: Correlates and Consequences," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(4), pages 483-505, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:32:y:1991:i:3:p:241-247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.