Correlates of High-Risk and Low-Risk Childbearing Pattern in Bangladesh

Abstract

Childbearing in human population can be classified as early, on-time and delayed in context of age of a woman or a group of women. While on-time childbearing involves less risk, both early and delayed childbearing involve high-risk also involves in having children in quick succession as well as in having children more than three or four. Thus, childbearing occurs early or late, in quick succession and at higher parity (more than 3 or 4) involves high-risk and beyond these have some low-risk. Admitting that every pregnancy expulsion involves risk -more or less. The present study is an attempt to analyse the childbearing pattern that are termed as high-risk and low-risk and try to isolate the factors that discriminate and affect significantly the high-risk and low-risk pattern in the context of age, parity and birth interval. Methodology The study uses 17 variables that include age of women, parity, birth interval, age at marriage, age at first birth, duration of conjugal life, surviving children, child loss experience, duration of breastfeeding, contraceptive use, spousal age difference, place of residence, religion of women, education of women, education of husband, women's working status and occupation of husband. Such data are available from the 1999-2000 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BOHS) implemented through a collaborative effect of the National Institute of Population Research and Training (NIPORT), Mitra and Associates, and ORC Macro (USA). Multi-stage random sampling was used to obtain the data. Data were obtained from all the administrative geographical divisions of Bangladesh. A total of 10,544 ever-married women aged 10-49 were interviewed to collect data concerning fertility levels, contraceptive, infant mortality levels to improve the lives of mothers and children. Aside from rates and ratios used in the analysis of data, the study uses x2-analysis to list the association between the attributes of risk of childbearing classified as high-risk and low-risk in terms of age, birth interval and parity and indicates socio-economic and demographic phenomena. The study further uses two sophisticated statistical techniques namely, discriminant and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Findings It is evident that childbearing performance varies greatly with differences in religion, education, residential status and so on. Majority of women (78 percent) are not currently working outside home. A considerable 70 percent of women live in rural area. About 43 percent of the study population has no formal education. The data shows that mean age at first marriage is 14.9 years while more than 50 percent were married before the age of 15 years and 80 percent of Bangladeshi women marry when they are still teenagers, which increases the likelihood of their having high-risk births in the absence of contraceptive use before the first birth. In most cases, the first birth occurs between ages 17 and 19, the median age at first birth is 17-18 for all women aged 20 and older. The results indicate that childbearing of adolescent mothers have on average, shorter birth interval (less than 24 months) than their adults counterparts. Nearly one in six children are born after a "too short" interval (less than 24 months). Although, the median birth interval is 39 months, younger women have shorter birth intervals than older women. The median birth interval for women age 15-19 is 27 months, compared with 48 months for women over age 40. The mean number of children ever born to currently married women is 3.13, while it is 2.58 for all women aged 15-49. It was found that the variables viz., education of women, contraceptive use, women's working status, occupation of husband, duration of conjugal life, child loss experience, age at first marriage, age at first birth, duration of breastfeeding and surviving children are the most significantly associated corresponding to age, parity and birth interval. The variables that significantly discriminate the high-risk childbearing from the low-risk childbearing are age at first marriage, duration of conjugal life, age at first birth, contraceptive use, child loss experience, surviving children, education of women, place of residence, women's working status, spousal age difference, occupation of husband and duration of breastfeeding. It was also found that the most important significant variables that influence both the high-risk and the low-risk childbearing are age at marriage, place of residence, education of women, duration of conjugal life, child loss experience, age at first birth, working status of women, and duration of breastfeeding, contraceptive use and occupation of husband.