Longer gaps between births can halve infant deaths in developing nations
But increasing that interval makes little difference in developed countries
By Sujata Gupta
In some of the world’s least-developed countries, spacing births two years apart, instead of one, can nearly halve infant mortality rates, a study finds. But in more developed nations, increasing the interval between successive childbirths makes little difference to infant deaths, researchers report July 3 in Demography.
“At low levels of development, birth spacing is really important for infant survival,” says demographer Joe Molitoris of Lund University in Sweden. “But as development progresses, the relative importance of spacing gets weaker and weaker until it basically becomes zero.” Women’s access to better nutrition and medical care likely compensate for short birth intervals, Molitoris and his colleagues say.