Prior research indicates that unintended pregnancy is associated with poorer maternal well-being, decreased relationship stability, and compromised child health and development, whereas prenatal father engagement is linked to lower maternal stress and enhanced infant health. Here we extend such research, considering unintended pregnancy and prenatal father engagement in typological perspective to (1) identify different types of (prenatal) families; (2) explore whether problematic antecedent factors predict family type; and (3) whether family type forecasts postnatal parenting attitudes, father involvement, and marital conflict. Latent-class analysis using a subsample of participants from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n = 6100) revealed four types of families: High Pregnancy Intention/High Father Engagement (22.6%), Low Pregnancy Intention/High Father Engagement (14%), Average Pregnancy Intention/Average Father Engagement (58.2%), and Low Pregnancy Intention/Low Father Engagement (5.2%). Associational findings indicated having a highly involved father prenatally mitigates potential risks associated with an unintended pregnancy vis-à-vis family functioning.

先前的研究表明，意外怀孕与母亲的健康状况较差、关系稳定性下降以及儿童健康和发育受损有关，而产前父亲的参与与降低母亲压力和增强婴儿健康有关。在这里，我们扩展了此类研究，从类型学角度考虑意外怀孕和产前父亲参与，以（1）识别不同类型的（产前）家庭；(2) 探讨问题前因是否能预测家庭类型；(3) 家庭类型是否预测产后养育态度、父亲参与和婚姻冲突。使用来自早期儿童纵向研究出生队列的参与者子样本进行潜在类别分析 ( n= 6100) 揭示了四种类型的家庭：高怀孕意愿/高父亲参与度 (22.6%)、低怀孕意愿/高父亲参与度 (14%)、平均怀孕意愿/平均父亲参与度 (58.2%) 和低怀孕意愿/父亲参与度低 (5.2%)。相关研究结果表明，有一个高度参与的父亲在产前减轻了与意外怀孕相关的潜在风险，而这对家庭功能而言。