The concept of unintended pregnancy has been essential to demographers in seeking to understand fertility, to public health practitioners in preventing unwanted childbearing and to both groups in promoting a woman's ability to determine whether and when to have children. Accurate measurement of pregnancy intentions is important in understanding fertility-related behaviors, forecasting fertility, estimating unmet need for contraception, understanding the impact of pregnancy intentions on maternal and child health, designing family planning programs and evaluating their effectiveness, and creating and evaluating community-based programs that prevent unintended pregnancy. ¹