Reproductive autonomy and pregnancy decision-making among young Ghanaian women

Decision-making regarding the outcome of a pregnancy may include participation of the woman herself, her sexual partner, parents, family, and/or community. This paper examines who had the most say in the outcome of young Ghanaian women's last pregnancy and whether this correlated with her level of reproductive autonomy (RA). We analysed cross-sectional data from 380 previously pregnant young women in urban Ghana. We measured communication and decision-making RA using modified scales ranging from 3 (low RA) to 12 (high RA). We tested unadjusted associations between the RA sub-scales and who made the pregnancy decision (self, partner, both together, or someone else) and used multinomial regression models to understand these associations when controlling for sociodemographic, reproductive history, and social context variables. In final models, a one-point increase in decision-making RA was associated with an adjusted relative risk ratio of 0.79 (95% CI: 0.66-0.93; p = 0.006) of partner having the most say as compared to the woman having the most say. The communication RA scale was not associated. Programmes that increase RA may be effective in increasing women's rights to execute decisions about reproductive health and outcomes. Future research should explore this notion and the role of pregnancy disclosure in this relationship.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:15

Enthalten in:

Global public health - 15(2020), 4 vom: 07. Apr., Seite 571-586

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Loll, Dana [VerfasserIn]
Fleming, Paul J [VerfasserIn]
Manu, Abubakar [VerfasserIn]
Morhe, Emmanuel [VerfasserIn]
Stephenson, Rob [VerfasserIn]
King, Elizabeth J [VerfasserIn]
Hall, Kelli Stidham [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Ghana
Journal Article
Pregnancy decision-making
Reproductive autonomy
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 04.08.2021

Date Revised 04.08.2021

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1080/17441692.2019.1695871

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM30369338X