Pregnancy intervals: their determinants and foetal outcome at the KCMC, Moshi, Tanzania.

ABSTRACT

PIP: Between May 15 and July 30, 1989, in northern Tanzania, two obstetricians interviewed 566 multigravida women, 17-48 years old, who delivered at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi to examine the determinants of birth intervals and their effect on fetal outcome. The pregnancy interval between the last and index pregnancies was greater than 2 years in 62.1% of cases. Older women tended to have a longer pregnancy interval than younger women (p .05). As the length of breast feeding increased so did the pregnancy interval. 62% of the women breast fed for more than 12 months. The greater the length of postpartum amenorrhea, the longer the pregnancy interval was. Other factors which had a positive association with pregnancy interval were postpartum sexual abstinence and contraceptive use. The most common contraceptive methods were oral contraceptives and IUD. Women who experienced an adverse preceding pregnancy outcome had a shorter pregnancy interval than those who had a positive pregnancy outcome ( 2 years, 27% for perinatal deaths vs. 70.7% for good outcome; p .05). No correlations existed between pregnancy interval and index pregnancy outcome. This was unexpected and could be explained by the fact that most of the women received prenatal care and delivered at the hospital, that husbands and families have traditionally cared well for pregnant women, or that the women were of good nutritional status. the researchers recommended that health education should stress the factors linked to long pregnancy intervals to help Tanzania reduce its high fertility rates.