A Qualitative Content Analysis of Men's Online Discussions About Their Partner's Contraceptive Use

As restrictions on abortion access increase, men's roles in pregnancy prevention are important to consider. Despite contraceptive responsibility largely falling on women, men also experience concerns, anxieties, and information gaps regarding contraception and unintended pregnancy. We conducted a reflexive content analysis of 699 posts from the subreddit r/birthcontrol, aiming to explore what men discuss regarding their partner's use of contraception and how that can inform understanding of shared contraceptive decision-making. Our analysis resulted in 143 codes, four categories, and 16 subcategories that described men's use of the subreddit, causes of men's pregnancy anxiety, men's methods of reducing anxiety, and men's prioritization of sex and pleasure. These findings provide novel insights into men's pregnancy-related anxiety - an underexplored phenomenon in reproductive health research - and reveal how men use online forums to seek information and emotional support in the absence of other resources. By examining men's reproductive concerns in a naturalistic online setting, the findings advance knowledge about gendered contraceptive responsibility and highlight the importance of examining men's involvement in pregnancy prevention, particularly in an era of increased restriction on access to abortion.