"The birth of a child that a woman says was unplanned—either mistimed or unwanted—at the time of its conception is a clear indication of a mismatch between reproductive intentions and outcomes. DHSs ask every woman who had any live births during the past 5 years to think back to the time she became pregnant and to say if she had wanted to become pregnant then, did not want to until later, or did not want to have any (more) children at all. Because interviewers refer to the child by name when asking about each pregnancy, women may redefine pregnancies that were unwanted at the time they occurred as having been wanted (perhaps less so for those that were mistimed). Even so, despite this almost certain bias, the proportions of births that women say were unwanted at conception range from 5% or fewer in 13 sub-Saharan African countries and in Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, up to 20% or more in Malawi, Yemen, Nepal, Cambodia, Haiti, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Proportions of births unplanned (unwanted plus mistimed) are far higher, exceeding half of all births in 9 of the 67 countries in developing regions for which data are available."