Unwanted pregnancy and children development at four years of age in Vila Jardim, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Abstract

Objective: To investigate how the unplanned and unaccepted pregnancy may affect children’s development and associated demographic and relational factors. Method: 82 women who did not plan their pregnancies participated. They are part of a larger study that follows all children born in public hospitals, from November 1998 to December 1999 in a Porto Alegre neighborhood, in South of Brazil. They were divided in two groups: 73 accepted the pregnancy after the fourth month and nine did not accept it. Participants were interviewed on: the pregnancy and birth; the couple’s relationship; the impact of the child’s birth for their lives and to the child’s fathers, as well as to the family of origin. Children were evaluated at age four using Denver II test. Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the groups: children of mothers that did not accept the pregnancy had developmental difficulties in language and fine motor coordination. These mothers had significantly more couple relationship problems and more children. Conclusions: children of unaccepted pregnancies showed evidences of more developmental problems in language and fine motor coordination than children of mothers who did not plan but accepted their pregnancies by the fourth month. This finding emphasizes the importance of health professionals to look for acceptance or not of pregnancy during prenatal care - as well as the quality of the couple’s relationship and the number of children - since these factors are associated with difficulties of child development, which may be sensitive to therapeutic intervention and/or prevention programs.