Timing Births

Supporting Information

The risk of death for young children increases by nearly 50 per cent if the space between births is less than two years.

One of the greatest threats to the health and growth of a child under the age of two is the birth of a new baby. Breastfeeding for the older child stops too soon, and the mother has less time to prepare the special foods a young child needs. She may not be able to give the older child the care and attention he or she needs, especially when the child is ill. As a result, children born less than two years apart usually do not develop as well, physically or mentally, as children born two years apart or more.

A woman's body needs two years to recover fully from pregnancy and childbirth. The risk to the mother's health is therefore greater if births come too close together. The mother needs time to get her health, nutritional status and energy back before she becomes pregnant again. Men need to be aware of the importance of a two-year space between births and the need to limit the number of pregnancies to help protect their family's health.

If a woman becomes pregnant before she is fully recovered from a previous pregnancy, there is a higher chance that her new baby will be born too early and weigh too little. Babies born underweight are less likely to grow well, more likely to become ill and four times more likely to die in the first year of life than babies of normal weight.