Intentionally or Ambivalently Risking a Short Inter-pregnancy Interval: Reproductive Readiness Factors in Women’s Postpartum Non-Use of Contraception

• Published in: Demography Vol. 57; no. 3; pp. 821 - 841
• Main Authors: Rendall, Michael S., Harrison, Eowna Young, Caudillo, Mónica L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.06.2020
• ISSN: 0070-3370; 1533-7790
• DOI: 10.1007/s13524-020-00859-7

A major focus of research on short inter-pregnancy intervals (IPI) has been on young, disadvantaged women, whose births are likely to be unintended. Increased fertility delay in the U.S. and other high-income countries, however, suggests the need also for research examining attributes of women that may indicate readiness to proceed rapidly to a next birth. We proposed that having had a later-than-desired previous birth, being older, having just had a first birth, and having just had a marital birth may be among these attributes indicating “reproductive readiness.” We hypothesized that these attributes would increase the likelihood of sexually-active women’s non-use of contraception 3 to 7 months postpartum, especially with the explicit intention of becoming pregnant again. Our data come from the 2012–2015 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, representing women who recently gave birth in 35 U.S. states and New York City (N=121,161). We found that these reproductive-readiness attributes were highly predictive of women’s postpartum non-use of contraception because she wanted to become pregnant, and were moderately predictive of contraceptive non-use without an explicit pregnancy intention. We conclude that planning for, or ambivalently risking, a short IPI is likely to become an increasingly common phenomenon as family-formation in the U.S. is initiated later in the reproductive life course.