Abstract:The age at first birth is very low under existing rural sociocultural settings in Bangladesh. This study examined the socioeconomic and cultural determinants of age at first birth. The study subjects were married women aged 15 to 29 years in 2 rural areas that were identified through a multistage sampling technique. To collect the relevant information, a semistructured interviewer schedule was applied to the eligible women. This study found that 72.8% women gave first birth at <20 years of age with mean age at… Show more
“…While it reduces the rate of maternal and child morbidity and mortality on one hand, especially in Nigeria where the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and infant mortality ratio (IMR) are above African Average [12]. On the other hand, delayed child bearing reduces fertility thereby, curtailing excessive population growth and improves standard of living among families through education and career development [6, 11, 13, 14]. …”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The family factors are made up of socio-economic background characteristics such as, education of parents, place of residence, geographical region of birth, religion, social status, employment status, etcetera. The societal factors include norms practices, peer pressures, women’s liberation and acceptance of cohabitation [6, 7, 11, 13–17]. Fig.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Often, some peer groups pressurize young girls to partaking in activities such as alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking that could probably increase their chance of entry into early motherhood. They therefore, tend to begin “adult” activities such as sexual intercourse early, leading to marriage and ultimately result in irrevocable entry into child bearing [3, 5, 13, 19]. …”
BackgroundFirst childbirth in a woman’s life is one of the most important events in her life. It marks a turnaround when she might have to drop roles of career building and education, for motherhood and parenthood. The timing of the commencement of these roles affects the child bearing behavior of women as they progress in their reproductive ages. Prevalent early first childbirth in Nigeria has been reported as the main cause of high population growth and high fertility, mortality and morbidity among women, but little has been documented on the progression into first birth as well as factors affecting it in Nigeria. This paper modelled timing of first birth among women in Nigeria and determined socio-demographic and other factors affecting its timing.MethodsWe hypothesized that background characteristics of a woman will influence her progression into having first birth. We developed and fitted a survival analysis model to understand the timing of first birth among women in Nigeria using a national representative 2013 NDHS data. Women with no children were right censored as of the date of the survey. The Kaplan Meier survival function was used to estimate the probabilities of first birth not occurring until certain ages of women while Cox proportional hazard regression was used to model the timing of first births at 5 % significance level.ResultsAbout 75.7 % of the respondents had given birth in the Northern region of Nigerian compared with 63.8 % in the South. Half (50.1 %) of the first childbirth occurred within the 15–19 years age bracket and 38.1 % within 20–29 years. The overall median survival time to first birth was 20 years (North 19, South 22), 27 years among women with higher education and 18 years for those with no formal education. The adjusted hazard of first birth was higher in the Northern region of Nigeria than in the South (aHR = 1.24, 95 % CI: 1.20-1.27), and higher in rural areas than in urban areas (aHR = 1.15, 95 % CI: 1.12-1.19). Also, hazard of earlier first birth tripled among women with no education (aHR = 3.36, 95 % CI: 3.17-3.55) compared to women with higher education. The significant factors affecting age at first birth are education, place and zone of residence, age at first marriage, religion, ethnicity and use of contraceptives.ConclusionsThis study showed that progression into early first birth is most affected by the education standing of women as well as age at first marriage. Delay of first childbirths as a strategy for fertility reduction and maternal health improvement can be achieved if women are empowered early in life with quality education. Stakeholders should therefore, give adequate attention to educating the girl child. Adverse socio-cultural norms of betrothing and marrying young girls should be abrogated, while health education and promotion of need to delay child bearing must be intensified especially among rural dwellers and also in Northern Nigeria.
“…While it reduces the rate of maternal and child morbidity and mortality on one hand, especially in Nigeria where the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and infant mortality ratio (IMR) are above African Average [12]. On the other hand, delayed child bearing reduces fertility thereby, curtailing excessive population growth and improves standard of living among families through education and career development [6, 11, 13, 14]. …”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The family factors are made up of socio-economic background characteristics such as, education of parents, place of residence, geographical region of birth, religion, social status, employment status, etcetera. The societal factors include norms practices, peer pressures, women’s liberation and acceptance of cohabitation [6, 7, 11, 13–17]. Fig.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Often, some peer groups pressurize young girls to partaking in activities such as alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking that could probably increase their chance of entry into early motherhood. They therefore, tend to begin “adult” activities such as sexual intercourse early, leading to marriage and ultimately result in irrevocable entry into child bearing [3, 5, 13, 19]. …”
BackgroundFirst childbirth in a woman’s life is one of the most important events in her life. It marks a turnaround when she might have to drop roles of career building and education, for motherhood and parenthood. The timing of the commencement of these roles affects the child bearing behavior of women as they progress in their reproductive ages. Prevalent early first childbirth in Nigeria has been reported as the main cause of high population growth and high fertility, mortality and morbidity among women, but little has been documented on the progression into first birth as well as factors affecting it in Nigeria. This paper modelled timing of first birth among women in Nigeria and determined socio-demographic and other factors affecting its timing.MethodsWe hypothesized that background characteristics of a woman will influence her progression into having first birth. We developed and fitted a survival analysis model to understand the timing of first birth among women in Nigeria using a national representative 2013 NDHS data. Women with no children were right censored as of the date of the survey. The Kaplan Meier survival function was used to estimate the probabilities of first birth not occurring until certain ages of women while Cox proportional hazard regression was used to model the timing of first births at 5 % significance level.ResultsAbout 75.7 % of the respondents had given birth in the Northern region of Nigerian compared with 63.8 % in the South. Half (50.1 %) of the first childbirth occurred within the 15–19 years age bracket and 38.1 % within 20–29 years. The overall median survival time to first birth was 20 years (North 19, South 22), 27 years among women with higher education and 18 years for those with no formal education. The adjusted hazard of first birth was higher in the Northern region of Nigeria than in the South (aHR = 1.24, 95 % CI: 1.20-1.27), and higher in rural areas than in urban areas (aHR = 1.15, 95 % CI: 1.12-1.19). Also, hazard of earlier first birth tripled among women with no education (aHR = 3.36, 95 % CI: 3.17-3.55) compared to women with higher education. The significant factors affecting age at first birth are education, place and zone of residence, age at first marriage, religion, ethnicity and use of contraceptives.ConclusionsThis study showed that progression into early first birth is most affected by the education standing of women as well as age at first marriage. Delay of first childbirths as a strategy for fertility reduction and maternal health improvement can be achieved if women are empowered early in life with quality education. Stakeholders should therefore, give adequate attention to educating the girl child. Adverse socio-cultural norms of betrothing and marrying young girls should be abrogated, while health education and promotion of need to delay child bearing must be intensified especially among rural dwellers and also in Northern Nigeria.
“…However, even in our study, disparity was seen between the levels of paternal and maternal education; a higher percentage of fathers had received college education; in contrast, a higher percentage of mothers had been educated less than nine years. We did not document the age at which the females in our study had gotten married but, the majority of mothers in our study were above 21 years of age in contrast to those in some developing countries, notably rural Bangladesh, where > 72% of first-time mothers were < 20 years of age (9). In our study, it was found that the mothers in the group, who had been educated for > 9 years were younger and more females in this group had two or more children, in contrast to the higher educated females, who, despite being older, had given birth to only one child.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 59%
“…Other studies have also shown that less educated females enter marriage earlier than educated individuals, start having children sooner, and also have more children, with the reverse being true for highly educated females (9)(10)(11)(12).…”
Background: Status of maternal education has a direct association with the incidence of childhood mortality. Despite many collected data about maternal education in developing countries, similar studies in transitional countries are low. Objectives: The overall aim of this study was to define the relationship between maternal education and a variety of health parameters in families with young children. Methods: In this study, 1112 families were enrolled. Data relevant to the factors linked with health parameters was collected through face-to-face interviews with parents. The infants aged 6 -24 months were brought to the out-patient clinics of Taleghani and Mofid children teaching hospitals, Tehran, Iran, for vaccinations, checkups, or minor childhood illnesses. According to level of education, the mothers were divided to two groups: those who had received formal education for at least nine years (group A) and those with less than nine years of education (group B). Results: The rate of single child (68.33%, P = 0.000) and cesarean delivery (61.53%, P = 0.000) was significantly higher in educated mothers (> 9 years). Conversely, frequency of low birth weight infant (9.1%, P = 0.021) and hospitalization after the neonatal period (15.4%, P = 0.024), in families with low maternal education, was significantly increased. Overall, 28.9% of children were exposed to second-hand smoke (SHS), which in all cases, fathers were responsible for the exposure (P = 0.00). Maternal education was significantly associated with infants' exposure to SHS from their smoking fathers. Conclusions: Our findings revealed the significant effect of maternal education on health parameters and indicated that low maternal education may increase the risk of mortality in infants.
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