Pregnancy maintenance motives in underage primiparous girls

Abstract

The clinical and psychological characteristics and reproductive motivation of underage pregnant girls remain an urgent and significant research issue for specialists in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, clinical psychology and pedagogy. Studying the pregnancy maintenance motives will allow to identify constructive and destructive aspects in the value-motivational sphere of young mothers, which will allow us to qualitatively expand the content of psychoprophylactic measures aimed at preventing termination of pregnancy and abandonment of young parents by their newborn children. 42 respondents participated in the study of pregnancy maintenance motives: 17 first-time pregnant girls aged 15-17 years with a gestation period from 13 to 40 weeks, as well as 25 first-time pregnant women aged 19-31 years.

Results. In pregnant girls and women, regardless of their age, the predominance of constructive motivation for maintaining pregnancy was revealed. Underage pregnant girls are characterized by positive indicators of the quality and behavior of prenatal attachment to the child, as well as the optimal type of psychological component of gestational dominance. Young pregnant women are at risk of forming unrealistic ideas about motherhood, about the needs of the newborn and the specifics of caring for him, an inadequate understanding of the costs and needs of the family in connection with the birth of a child, and there are also tendencies to strengthendestructive motives such as «having a child in order to gain independence from parents» or «having a child «for spite» to a partner».