This article presents qualitative data on the contraceptive
practices of fifty-one unmarried pregnant women selected at a Dublin
maternity hospital. Seven categories have been constructed from data to
capture the ways in which the women became pregnant, namely 'fertility
denial', 'destiny dependence', 'progressive remissness', 'occasional or
intermittent risk-taking', 'calculated risk-taking', 'pro-active fertility
management', and 'contraceptive failure or misuse'. It is argued that the
variations noted in women's experiences in approaching pregnancy
occurred against a background of patriarchal discourses that sometimes
intersected to produce contradictory effects.
