Young mothers may be more likely to have unprotected sex in encounters with the fathers of their children, increasing their risk of repeat pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, a U.S. study suggests.
Researchers followed 171 women ages 15 to 24 in Baltimore, Maryland who had at least one sexual partner after becoming mothers.
When the women had sex in what they colloquially called "baby daddy" relationships, they were more than 12 times more likely to skip condoms for vaginal sex and more than thee times as likely to have unprotected anal intercourse.
"We have heard qualitatively for years that condom use is minimal in sexual relationships where there is a shared child," said lead researcher Michele Decker of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in an email.
And indeed, she added, in this study, "condom nonuse for both vaginal and anal intercourse was more common in those relationships."
To understand how shared children may influence sexual behavior, Decker and colleagues analyzed survey data collected from 2011 to 2013 from heterosexual men and women who were sexually active.