Ambivalent Fertility desire and its associated factors among pregnant women attending in governmental primary hospitals in Tigray, Ethiopia 2019

Abstract

Background: Fertility desire had been compromised by dichotomized measures (intended and unintended) which fail to fully capture women’s feeling and emotion regarding their pregnancy at the time of conception.However, current research works clearly indicates the presence of a substantial portion of women who are ambivalent about their pregnancy, and who thus do not fit into one- dimensional definitions. Believing the proportion of these mothers as substantial with unique characteristic this topic has never been tested in Ethiopia.
Objective: To measure the magnitude of Ambivalent fertility desire and its associated factors among women attending in governmental primary hospitals in Tigray 2019.
Methods and materials: Cross- sectional study designs was conducted among randomly selected 501 pregnant mothers from ten primary hospitals of Tigray. London psychometric measure was used to assess ambivalent fertility desire. For analyses, statically package for social science version 22 was used. Percentage and frequency was used to describe the data, cross tabulations with chi - square tests of significance and multivariate logistic model was performed for factor analyses. Finally results were summarized through tables and graphs.
Result: The overall magnitude of ambivalent pregnancy occurrence was 35.3%: 95% CI, (31.1, 39.5). Participants with low religious affiliation were less likely to have ambivalent as opposed to Intended and 83% less likely to have Ambivalent rather than unintended pregnancy than those highly affiliated. Participants in the middle age category 21up 34 years old were 3-4 times higher to have ambivalent pregnancy rather than planned and unplanned pregnancy as compared to other age category. The odds of mothers who ever give birth to have an ambivalent rather than planned pregnancy were 2.9 times higher than the odds of primiparousand 15 higher to have Ambivalent rather than unintended pregnancy.
Conclusion:More than one third of mother’s pregnancies were occurred while they had ambivalent pregnancy intentions. Being in the middle of adult’s age at conception, high religiosity and having a child were predictors of ambivalent pregnancy intention. Better understanding of dimensions of pregnancy intentions is needed to improve ways of helping women to prevent ambiguity in pregnancies.