"It won't happen to me": Factors underlying unintended conceptions in young women

Abstract

Reducing teenage pregnancy and lowering rates of young parenthood is a key priority for the UK government. The ten year national Teenage Pregnancy Strategy was launched in 1999, and the Teenage Pregnancy Unit was established to manage implementation of the strategy. Kingston upon Hull remains amongst the Local Authorities with the highest rates of teenage conceptions nationally, despite a strong local teenage pregnancy strategy and an active programme of activity to improve access to sexual health services (including family planning) and to provide education to help young people resist pressure to have early sex. This paper presents an exploratory study, carried out in Hull, which used focussed interviews with twenty four young women (aged 16-24) who had either recently had, or were waiting for, termination of pregnancy, to explore the factors leading to an unintended conception. The interviews focussed on the participants’ experiences of sex education, their awareness of, and access to, sexual health services, and their knowledge and use of contraception. Presenting key findings around knowledge, access to services, decisions around contraceptive use, the influence of alcohol, peer pressure, and other significant factors influencing young women’s use (or not) of contraception, the paper focuses particularly on gendered expectations about responsibility for contraception.