"Are Women Hesitant to Become Mothers in the New World?"

The decision to have a child can be perceived as indecisive, and women who experience maternal indecisiveness avoid pregnancy. However, as women age, fertility anxiety also increases. We aimed to investigate the mediating role of aging anxiety in the relationship between maternal ambivalence and avoidance of pregnancy in women. Data collection tools included a "Personal Information Form," "the Maternal Ambivalence Scale," "the Desire to Avoid Pregnancy Scale," and "The Relational Aging Anxiety Scale." Regression models assessed the association between Maternal Ambivalence Scale, Desire to Avoid Pregnancy Scale and Relational Aging Anxiety Scale. SPSS Process v.3.4 analysis was performed to make a mediator effect assessment. It was found that the model was significant and 3% of the desire to avoid pregnancy was explained by maternal ambivalence (F=9.088; p=0.003) (n=300). Since the confidence interval (95% CI [0.019; 0.096]) of the indirect effect did not include "0", a mediating effect was detected. It was found that the model was significant and 17.6% of the desire to avoid pregnancy was explained by the doubts sub-dimension (F=9.477; p=0.002). Since the confidence interval (95% CI [0.024; 0.200]) of the indirect effect did not include "0", a mediating effect was identified. The collective affinity for older people sub-dimension had a partial mediating effect between rejection and the desire to avoid pregnancy. Results indicated that 20.5% of the total effect on the desire to avoid pregnancy was provided by the mediating effect. It was found that women's perceptions of aging caused maternal ambivalence and that this situation was effective in avoiding pregnancy.