Life Situations Associated with the Onset of Pregnancy

Abstract

A psychiatric evaluation of 31 unmarried pregnant women revealed significant life situations to have recently preceded the pregnancy onset. One specifically recurrent factor was the occurrence of a separation. These involved separations through death, leaving home or the threat of these and related events. The pregnancy appeared to function as a replacement for an object loss in a group of subjects especially vulnerable to strong depressive reactions. The data is also suggestive of the possibility that a hyperfertile state might exist following an object loss and may in part account for a relative infertility among adolescent girls.