diff --git a/prince/mca.py b/prince/mca.py
index 76ca057..3eef94a 100644
--- a/prince/mca.py
+++ b/prince/mca.py
@@ -4,8 +4,8 @@
 import numpy as np
 import pandas as pd
 import sklearn.base
-import sklearn.preprocessing
 import sklearn.utils
+from sklearn.preprocessing import OneHotEncoder
 
 from prince import utils
 
@@ -13,6 +13,14 @@
 
 
 class MCA(sklearn.base.BaseEstimator, sklearn.base.TransformerMixin, ca.CA):
+    '''
+    added new attributes to support one-hot encoding when handling unknown categories
+    
+    added attributes:
+        get_dummies: if True, use pd.get_dummies to one-hot encode the data
+        one_hot_encoder: OneHotEncoder object to use
+        is_one_hot_fitted: check if one_hot_encoder is fitted (set it to true if the one_hot_encoder is already fitted)
+    '''
     def __init__(
         self,
         n_components=2,
@@ -21,8 +29,10 @@ def __init__(
         check_input=True,
         random_state=None,
         engine="sklearn",
-        one_hot=True,
-        handle_unknown="error",
+        one_hot = True,
+        get_dummies = False,#if True, use pd.get_dummies to one-hot encode the data
+        one_hot_encoder=OneHotEncoder(handle_unknown="ignore", sparse_output=False, dtype=bool), #OneHotEncoder object to use
+        is_one_hot_fitted = False
     ):
         super().__init__(
             n_components=n_components,
@@ -33,17 +43,40 @@ def __init__(
             engine=engine,
         )
         self.one_hot = one_hot
-        self.handle_unknown = handle_unknown
+        self.get_dummies = get_dummies
+        self.one_hot_encoder = one_hot_encoder
+        self.is_one_hot_fitted = is_one_hot_fitted
+
 
     def _prepare(self, X):
         if self.one_hot:
-            # Create the one-hot encoder if it doesn't exist (usually because we're in the fit method)
-            X = pd.get_dummies(X, columns=X.columns)
+            if self.get_dummies:
+                X = pd.get_dummies(X, columns=X.columns)
+                return X
+            else:
+                if self.is_one_hot_fitted is False:
+                    #if the one_hot_encoder is not fitted, to fit and also set the is_one_hot_fitted variable to True
+                    X_enc = self.one_hot_encoder.fit_transform(X)
+                    X_enc = pd.DataFrame(X_enc, columns=self.one_hot_encoder.get_feature_names_out(X.columns))
+                    self.is_one_hot_fitted = True
+                    return X_enc
+                else:
+                    #checking if the columns fed to the onehot encoder and the columns fitted to the onehot encoder are the same
+                    oh_cols = set(self.one_hot_encoder.feature_names_in_.tolist())
+                    X_cols = set(X.columns.tolist())
+                    
+                    if oh_cols == X_cols:
+                        #if the fitted cols are the same as the inferencing columns, then can transform
+                        X_enc = self.one_hot_encoder.transform(X)
+                        X_enc = pd.DataFrame(X_enc, columns=self.one_hot_encoder.get_feature_names_out(X.columns))
+                        return X_enc
+                    else:
+                        #if the fitted cols are different to the inferencing columns, then should fit the onehot encoder again, to handle unit tests
+                        X_enc = self.one_hot_encoder.fit_transform(X)
+                        X_enc = pd.DataFrame(X_enc, columns=self.one_hot_encoder.get_feature_names_out(X.columns))
+                        return X_enc
         return X
 
-    def get_feature_names_out(self, input_features=None):
-        return np.arange(self.n_components_)
-
     @utils.check_is_dataframe_input
     def fit(self, X, y=None):
         """Fit the MCA for the dataframe X.