Is pregnancy planning associated with background characteristics and pregnancy-planning behavior?

INTRODUCTION: Prevalence of planned pregnancies varies between countries but is often measured in a dichotomous manner. The aim of this study was to investigate to what level pregnant women had planned their pregnancies and whether pregnancy planning was associated with background characteristics and pregnancy-planning behavior. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study that utilized the baseline measurements from the Swedish Pregnancy Planning study. Pregnant women (n = 3390) recruited at antenatal clinics answered a questionnaire. Data were analyzed with multinomial logistic regression, Kruskal-Wallis H and chi-squared tests. RESULTS: Three of four pregnancies were very or fairly planned and 12% fairly or very unplanned. Of women with very unplanned pregnancies, 32% had considered an induced abortion. Women with planned pregnancies were more likely to have a higher level of education, higher household income, to be currently working (≥50%) and to have longer relationships than women with unplanned pregnancies. The level of pregnancy planning was associated with planning behavior, such as information-seeking and intake of folic acid, but without a reduction in alcohol consumption. One-third of all women took folic acid 1 month prior to conception, 17% used tobacco daily and 11% used alcohol weekly 3 months before conception. CONCLUSIONS: A majority rated their pregnancy as very or fairly planned, with socio-economic factors as explanatory variables. The level of pregnancy planning should be queried routinely to enable individualized counseling, especially for women with unplanned pregnancies. Preconception recommendations need to be established and communicated to the public to increase health promoting planning behavior.

Investigating the effect of lifestyle risk factors upon number of aspirated and mature oocytes in in vitro fertilization cycles: Interaction with antral follicle count.

INTRODUCTION: There is evidence demonstrating that certain lifestyle factors have a detrimental effect on fertility. Since such factors often coexist, possible synergistic effects merit further investigation. Thus we aimed to examine the cumulative impact of lifestyle factors on in vitro fertilization (IVF) early reproductive treatment outcomes and their interaction with measures of ovarian reserve. MATERIALS AND METHODS: By following women who were starting their first fresh IVF cycle in 2 cohorts, the "Lifestyle study cohort" (hypothesis generating cohort, n = 242) and the "UppSTART study" (validation cohort, n = 432) in Sweden, we identified two significant risk factors acting independently, smoking and BMI, and then further assessed their cumulative effects. RESULTS: Women with both these risk factors had an Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR) of 0.75 [(95% CI 0.61-0.94)] regarding the number of aspirated oocytes compared to women without these risk factors. Concerning the proportion of mature oocytes in relation to the total number of aspirated oocytes, the interaction between BMI and Antral Follicle Count (AFC) was significant (p-value 0.045): the lower the value of AFC, the more harmful the effect of BMI with the outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Data shows that there is an individual as well as a cumulative effect of smoking and BMI on the number of aspirated and mature oocytes in fresh IVF treatment cycles. AFC might modify associations between BMI and the proportion of mature oocytes in relation to the total number of aspirated oocytes. These results highlight the importance of lifestyle factors on IVF early reproductive outcomes and provide additional evidence for the importance of preconception guidance for the optimization of IVF cycle outcome.