2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

Past research has focused on the importance of stringent medical diabetes management for pregnant women with type 1 diabetes to achieve a pregnancy with minimal complications. Unfortunately, there is little research on these type 1 diabetic women’s actual lived experiences with pregnancy. Additionally, there is virtually no existing research on the expectations that type 1 diabetic women have towards a future pregnancy experience. This study was designed to gain insight into expectations that nulliparal diabetic women have regarding pregnancy, to understand the lived pregnancy experiences of women with type 1 diabetes, and to examine the expectations versus the lived experiences. Ten nulliparal women with type 1 diabetes and 10 women with type 1 diabetes who were currently or/had previously given birth were recruited. All women were interviewed over Skype. All audio recordings from the interviews were transcribed and then coded for themes. The results indicated that women who were currently pregnant and/or had previously been pregnant reported significantly more positive themes regarding diabetes and pregnancy than did the women who had never been pregnant. This research suggests that it is essential that dialogues regarding pregnancy be initiated by physicians even prior to a voiced desire to become pregnant, in order to accurately educate their patients, and ease any unnecessary anxiety in this population of women. Additionally, this study exposed that early diabetes education, pregnancy planning, and support are important, yet often overlooked, factors that increase the likelihood for physically and emotionally successful pregnancy experiences for this population of women. **I cannot present on Sunday as Dr. Joan Chrisler, the second author, cannot attend on Sunday. Thank you in advanced!**

Homelessness among female-headed families in the United States is increasing. Up from 1 percent in the 1980s, families now comprise 38 percent of the unhoused population (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2013). Structural inequities – poverty, low wages, domestic violence, and lack of affordable housing and foreclosures – are root causes of homelessness among women with children (U.S. Housing and Urban Development, 2012). Yet, ameliorative institutional initiatives remain underfunded or absent. Compounding this policy gap is silence within political and media arenas; family homelessness, and specifically women’s narration of their own experiences, is underrepresented in mainstream analyses of social and economic marginalization. Unhoused women with children report feeling that policymakers and people in positions of authority do not understand homelessness and that policy initiative too often focus on changing individual women rather than economic conditions (Averitt, 2003; Cosgrove & Flynn, 2005; DeWard & Moe, 2010). What policies do unstably housed mothers’ perceive as effective in reducing family homelessness? As part of a larger study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 formerly homeless mothers to better understand their experiences of being unhoused and the economic and housing policies they believed would most help their own and other similarly situated families. All respondents had lived in residential family shelters with their children within the past two years. Our informants consistently described scant resources and overburdened systems despite being told that that supportive services were available. Respondents identified a core set of practices for retaining (e.g., rental assistance programs, more affordable housing units) and securing housing (e.g., help navigating rental markets, security deposit cash assistance). Our findings underscore the importance of including mothers’ voices in housing policy discussions.

Although teen pregnancy rates in the United States have been on the decline since 1991 (Ventura, Hamilton, Mathews, 2014), more than 750,000 teens find out that they are pregnant each year (Guttmacher Institute, 2010). Recently, research has focused on whether the media can be used as a means of reducing teen pregnancy (Moyer-Guse, 2008), and significant attention has been focused on MTV’s reality shows Teen Mom / 16 and Pregnant, which have become cultural phenomena among adolescents and adults. Studies assessing the impact of viewing Teen Mom/ 16 and Pregnant on viewer’s attitudes and behaviors surrounding teen pregnancy have found mixed results (Aubrey et al., 2014; Martins & Jensen, 2014; Suellentrop, Brown, & Oritz, 2010; Wright et al., 2013), with some research suggesting the shows promote teen pregnancy by making it seem as though teen moms have an enviable quality of life (Martin & Jensen, 2014) while other studies indicate the shows discourage teen pregnancy (Aubrey et al., 2014). The current study expands on this initial research by utilizing a mixed methodological design to assess college women’s (N=372) perceptions of whether or not Teen Mom / 16 and Pregnant encourages teen pregnancy. Preliminary results indicated that of participants who watched some or all episodes of Teen Mom / 16 and Pregnant, viewers who perceived the show as offensive were also more likely to believe the show encouraged teen pregnancy (r = .178, p = .016). Participants were asked a subsequent open-ended question to explain why the show does or does not accurately portray relationships. Content analyses are currently underway to examine these responses. Implications of findings for future research, as well as media literacy and teen pregnancy prevention efforts will be discussed. If our study is not accepted as a paper, we ask that it be considered for a poster.