Abstract
This research examines the relationship between the intentionality of first pregnancy and life events and difficulties, self esteem and other factors in a group of women of all ages. The differing views of earlier authors on the subject are presented in an introductory section, and used to build up a model and hypotheses. The model suggests that certain events will precede unplanned pregnancy: in short the sort of events which underline the insecurity of a woman's life. Further it suggests that these women will suffer from lower self esteem and be involved in much more negative partnerships. These hypotheses were tested and results provided some support for the idea that women with unplanned pregnancies have undergone more security reducing events and difficulties. There was no evidence that these women had lower self esteem than others. The hypothesis about the negative partnerships of women with unplanned pregnancies was strongly supported. In contrast, women with planned pregnancies were found to have undergone fewer life events of any kind and to have consistently more positive partnerships. A new group was isolated for analysis: women with semi-planned pregnancies. This group was found to resemble women with planned pregnancies in some ways, and women with 'true unplanned' pregnancies in other ways, making for some interesting comparisons. The findings of this study were used to refine the initial model to account for four different possible pathways: true unplanned pregnancy, semi-planned pregnancy, planned pregnancy or no pregnancy.