INTENT TOWARD CONCEPTION AND THE PREGNANCY EXPERIENCE.

The article determines the possibility of a relationship between intent toward first conception and certain factors in wives' backgrounds and physical and emotional experiences of pregnancy. The sample consisted of students' wives who were residing in barrack-apartments on the Michigan State College campus in the spring of 1949. For this analysis 212 wives were classified into three groups according to their stated intent toward conception as indicated by their responses to a questionnaire dealing with the pregnancy experience. These three groups studied consisted of eighty-one wives who had unsuccessfully tried to avoid conception, fifty-five wives who had neither tried to avoid nor tried to effect conception, and seventy-five wives who had planned conception. Sixty-seven per cent of wives indicated that they had at the time of marriage decided to wait awhile before having children. Eighty- four wives conceived within first six months of marriage and 127 conceived after first six months of marriage. First six months were characterized by most unplanned pregnancy.