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Determinants of breast-feeding and post-partum sexual abstinence: analysis of a Sample of Yoruba women, western Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Osei-mensah Aborampah
Osei-mensah Aborampah
Affiliation:
Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
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Summary

This study employs multiple classification and regression techniques to determine the influence of marital, sociodemographic and selected intermediate variables on duration of breast-feeding and post-partum sexual abstinence among a sample of 300 Yoruba women of western Nigeria. Only education and place of residence appeared to be significantly related to the post-partum variables. Breast-feeding was shown to exert a significant positive effect on abstinence. The effect of contraception on the post-partum variables appeared to be a function of socioeconomic status.

Reductions in the duration of the post-partum variables due to relative affluence can result in increases in fertility. Planners may do well to encourage women to go back to the use of these traditional child spacing practices in the absence of large scale and effective use of contraceptives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , October 1985 , pp. 461 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © 1985, Cambridge University Press

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