Antecedents of Pregnancy Intention and Prenatal Father Engagement: A Dyadic and Typological Approach

Abstract

Prior research indicates that unintended pregnancy is associated with poorer maternal well-being, decreased relationship stability, and compromised child health and development, whereas prenatal father engagement is linked to lower maternal stress and enhanced infant health. Here we extend such research, considering unintended pregnancy and prenatal father engagement in typological perspective to (1) identify different types of (prenatal) families; (2) explore whether problematic antecedent factors predict family type; and (3) whether family type forecasts postnatal parenting attitudes, father involvement, and marital conflict. Latent-class analysis using a subsample of participants from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort ( n = 6100) revealed four types of families: High Pregnancy Intention/High Father Engagement (22.6%), Low Pregnancy Intention/High Father Engagement (14%), Average Pregnancy Intention/Average Father Engagement (58.2%), and Low Pregnancy Intention/Low Father Engagement (5.2%). Associational findings indicated having a highly involved father prenatally mitigates potential risks associated with an unintended pregnancy vis-à-vis family functioning.