title: How does maternal age affect pregnancy planning in Puerto Rico?
abstract: Family planning is essential to most prenatal care programs. It is generally believed that maternal age influences the planning of pregnancy with younger patients having higher incidences of unplanned pregnancies. To test this hypothesis we evaluated 470 consecutive cases of pregnant patients regarding pregnancy planning in their current pregnancy. A total of 170 (36.1%) were planned. The incidence of planned pregnancies was evaluated among three age groups and results were as follows: less than 20 years old, 18/60 (30.0%), patients 20 to 29 years old, 105/270 (37%) and more than 29 years old, 47/140 (33.6%). These differences were not statistically significant. Surprisingly, no differences among age groups regarding pregnancy planning were identified in this study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical Sciences Campus, University of Puerto Rico, PO Box 365067, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-5067. delavega@coqui.net
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de la Vega
authors.forename: Maribelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Verdiales
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005193:Family Planning Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008423:Maternal Age; D008875:Middle Aged; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011647:Puerto Rico