Unwanted births up for uncertain reasons, study says

ATLANTA – More American women are having babies they didn’t want, a survey indicates, but federal researchers say they don’t know if that means attitudes about abortion are changing.

U.S. women of childbearing age who were surveyed in 2002 revealed that 14 percent of their recent births were unwanted at the time of conception, federal researchers said Monday.

In a similar 1995 survey, only 9 percent were unwanted at the time of conception.

The latest findings are consistent with the falling rate of abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group that researches reproductive health issues.

In 1995, for every 100 pregnancies that ended in abortion or a birth, almost 26 ended in abortion. In 2002, 24 ended in abortion, according to Guttmacher data.

The new data on unwanted pregnancies was released by the National Center for Health Statistics, which surveyed 7,643 U.S. women on that and many other family planning and reproductive health questions in 2002 and early 2003. The surveyed women were between the ages of 15 and 44. Researchers only recently completed their analysis of survey questions.

The proportion of unwanted births at time of conceptions was highest among girls under 18 – 25.4 percent. It was lowest among women 30 to 44 – 10.4 percent.

The proportion was higher for black women (26.2 percent) than for Hispanics (16.8 percent) and whites (10.7 percent).

Here are some other highlights from the new federal report:

* About 42 percent of women in 2002 said they never married, up from 38 percent in 1995.

* About 50 percent of women in 2002 said they had lived with a man in a sexual relationship outside of marriage, up from 41 percent of women in the 1995 survey.

* The overall rate of breastfeeding among recent births rose to 67 percent in 2002, up from 55 percent in 1995. The increase in black families was most pronounced, rising to 47 percent from 25 percent in the early 1990s.