Study on birth spacing and its determinants among women of Kirtipur Municipality of Kathmandu District

Birth spacing is a significant health-improving and life-sav-ing measure for mothers and children. Short birth spacing has an important public health impact. Adequate birth spacing could be logical alternative strategies for fertility control.

To assess the pattern of birth spacing and its determinants among women of Kirtipur Municipality of Kathmandu.

Community based cross-sectional study

350 ever married women of reproductive age group from three wards of Kirtipur were selected by adopting proportionate random sampling technique. Data were collected through interview and analyzed using nonparametric tests and multinomial logistic regression.

The mean birth interval is 4.05 years (3–5.83). Very few women (7.1%) had <2 years birth spacing, while 114 (24.3%) practiced birth spacing of >5 years. The average birth interval shows decreasing trend with increase in birth order. Birth interval is significantly associated with education, socio economic status, sex and number of children, abortions and child deaths, previous obstetric history and menopause. The important predictors were age of the couple, age at first sex and childbearing, education, economic status, current living children, ideal number of children and abortion.

Majority of the women practice optimum birth interval despite low literacy. The optimal birth spacing significantly increases with increase in educational attainment, improvement of socio economic status, decreased number of living children, presence of both sexes in the family, absence of abortions and child deaths and menopause. The important predictors found were age of the couple, age at first sex and childbearing, education, economic status, living children, ideal number of children and abortion.