Antenatal women's childbearing practices at the Niger Delta university teaching hospital, Okolobiri Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Background: Overpopulation in a community or a country reflects high fertility desires of its citizens. A country can only progress meaningfully if its resources and amenities can provide for all its citizens. Objectives: To examine the childbearing practices of antenatal attendees at the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Okolobiri, Nigeria and whether there is any suggestion of fertility decline or transition. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study of two hundred and fifty-two women who had antenatal care in the hospital during the study period. Data was collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.85. Data collected were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25. Statistical significance was a p-value <0.05. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 30.5 ± 5.9 years. More than half (53.6%) had tertiary education and 39.3% had secondary education. Only 29.4% were housewives/unemployed. The median parity was 2 and 229 women accounted for previous deliveries of 596 babies. The median desired total number of children was 4 (range 1 to 8). More than half (56.3%) did not believe in spacing after the first child. Seventy-six (30.2%) had no knowledge of modern contraceptives. There was a significant relationship (p - 0.018) between child sex preference and number of births. Conclusion: With a current median parity of two children/woman and desired total number of children of a median of four children/woman, the childbearing practices of the population studied may not result in a fertility rate far below the Nigeria national average of 5.3 children per woman. Nevertheless, a study to derive the total fertility rate in the study population is necessary to determine whether or not there is ongoing fertility transition.