Population Council Research that makes a difference

AIDSImpact 2011
12–15 September

Abstract

"Recurrence of unintended pregnancies among HIV-positive adolescent girls in Kenya: Extent and implications for birth outcomes"
Francis Obare, Anke van der Kwaak, and Harriet Birungi

This paper examines the extent of recurrence of unintended pregnancies among HIV-positive adolescent girls aged 15–19 years in Kenya and how these experiences relate to birth outcomes. Analysis entails the estimation of multi-level random-intercept logit models. The results show that higher order pregnancies among HIV-positive adolescents were just as likely to be unintended as lower order ones. In addition, HIV-positive adolescent girls were significantly more likely to experience not only unintended births but also repeat occurrence of such births compared to their counterparts in the general population. Unintended pregnancies were, however, not significantly associated with poor birth outcomes among HIV-positive adolescents. The findings suggest the need to strengthen the provision of sexual and reproductive health information and services to HIV-positive adolescent clients within HIV/AIDS programs in order to reduce the risk of undesired consequences of unplanned and unprotected sex, including the high rates of unintended pregnancies.

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