Pregnancy planning does not interfere with child development in children aged from 11 to 23 months old.
Katherine Solís-Cordero, Luciana Assis Couto, Luciane Simões Duarte and 2 others
PMID 34816875WHAT IT FOUND
Pregnancy planning was not linked to child development scores in 125 mother-child pairs when children were 11 to 23 months old.
Most children had adequate development; age and gender related to some domains.
Key findings
01Pregnancy planning scores were not significantly linked to any child development domain score.
02Child development scores varied with child age and gender: broad and fine motor scores were positively linked to age, and female children had higher communication and personal/social scores.
03Pregnancies were classified as unplanned in 17.6%, planned in 24.8%, and ambivalent in 57.6%; more than 60% of children had adequate development in all domains.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether pregnancy planning caused, prevented, or had no effect on child development. Pregnancy planning was measured 11 to 23 months after birth, which may introduce memory bias. All families came from one socially disadvantaged district of São Paulo, so results may not apply elsewhere. The sample was 125 dyads, and many families had similar socioeconomic characteristics, limiting variation. Children with clinical conditions that could interfere with development were excluded, so it says little about children already known to have conditions.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that pregnancy planning cannot affect child development. This cross-sectional study measured planning 11 to 23 months after birth and only tested association, so it cannot show cause or rule out effects.