In Goteborg, 120 unwanted children were matched with 120 controls of the same sex. Individuals unwanted at conception, unwanted during gestation, and delivered after refusal of applications for abortion were at greater risk than control subjects for psychosocial problems. The unwanted children received more psychiatric attention, were more often delinquent, and did more poorly in school.
In northern Finland (Oulu and Lapland), where 12% of almost 12,000 women said the pregnancy "should not have occurred at all," many comparisons were made over time with the children of mothers who had accepted the pregnancy. At 28 days after birth, measurements revealed that unwanted babies were smaller in weight and length, and a greater proportion of them had been born prematurely. These children had a significantly higher infant mortality rate (24 deaths per 1000 births) and had higher incidences of all types of handicaps including cerebral palsy and mental retardation. At age eight, the researchers initiated a matched-pair study to compare the wanted and unwanted babies after the first year of school, and again at age 14 and 16, the last year of compulsory education in Finland. From the start, unwanted babies had a harder time in school, needed more help from teachers, and were rated poorer in verbal performance.
Follow-up at age fourteen showed the unwanted children had more than double the number of low IQ scores (under 86) as their matched pairs. Physical growth was poorer and school performance significantly lower. Finally, at sixteen years of age, unwanted children were more often reluctant to go to school, wanted to leave at the earliest possible age, and found little purpose in continuing their education. Relationships with teachers and fellow classmates were more troubled. At home, the unwanted girls felt their fathers had been less interested in them, behaved more inconsistently, and had been less involved in their upbringing, compared to their matched pairs.
In Prague, studies used a double-blind method, matched-pair controls, periodic psychological assessments, and public records. By age nine, the children born to mothers twice refused for abortion ended up requiring more medical care for acute and long-term illnesses. Mothers rated them as more stubborn, naughty, and bad-tempered. Teachers rated them lower in academic achievement. Schoolmates rejected them as friends more often than their peers. Born to ambivalent mothers, these children were more deviant, received less empathy and attention to their communications, had less warm interchanges with each other, and suffered psychological deprivation.
At age 14, school performance was worse, many opting not to continue to secondary school. Teachers rated them more hyperactive and less sociable. They felt more rejected by their mothers than did the matched-pairs; and relationships with parents deteriorated over time.
By age 23 these unwanted children showed a greater proneness to social problems, criminal activity, and had triple the amount of serious repeated offenses requiring custodial prison sentences. When questioned about their happiness and life-style they reported far more dissatisfaction, unhappiness, problems, and worries than the control children. They mentioned having poor relationships with their parents and knew that their parents were dissatisfied with them. Unwanted children reported repeated disappointments with love relationships and agreed with the statement: "love brings more trouble than pleasure."
The unwanted children of Prague, themselves breastfed for a significantly shorter time, gave the opinion that a child should be breastfed for no longer than a month at most. Unwanted children drank more black coffee, smoked more heavily, and drank larger quantities of beer than their matched pairs born at the same hospital to parents who wanted them. More of the rejected children were in psychiatric treatment. They coped less well with even minor stress than their counterparts.
