Fertility

About: Fertility is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 29988 publications have been published within this topic receiving 681106 citations.

Low fertility at the turn of the twenty-first century

Abstract: In the past few decades, demographic concerns have shifted from rapid population growth fueled by high fertility to concerns of population decline produced by very low, sub-replacement fertility levels. Once considered a problem unique to Europe or developed nations, concerns now center on the global spread of low fertility. Nearly half of the world's population now lives in countries with fertility at or below replacement levels. Further, by the mid-twenty-first century three of four countries now described as developing are projected to reach or slip below replacement fertility. We review the research on low fertility through the predominant frameworks and theories used to explain it. These explanations range from decomposition and proximate determinant frameworks to grand theories on the fundamental causes underlying the pervasiveness and spread of low fertility. We focus on the ability of theory to situate previous and future findings and conclude with directions for furthur research.

The impact of the Navrongo Project on contraceptive knowledge and use, reproductive preferences, and fertility.

Abstract: The Navrongo Community Health and Family Planning Project is a quasi-experimental study designed to test the hypothesis that introducing health and family planning services in a traditional African societal setting will introduce reproductive change. This article presents the impact of the initial three years of project exposure on contraceptive knowledge, awareness of supply sources, reproductive preferences, contraceptive use, and fertility. Findings show that knowledge of methods and supply sources increased as a result of exposure to project activities and that deployment of nurses to communities was associated with the emergence of preferences to limit childbearing. Fertility impact is evident in all treatment cells, most prominently in areas where nurse-outreach activities are combined with strategies for involving traditional leaders and male volunteers in promoting the program. In this combined cell, the initial three years of project exposure reduced the total fertility rate by one birth, comprising a 15 percent fertility decline relative to fertility levels in comparison communities.

Persistent high fertility in Uganda: young people recount obstacles and enabling factors to use of contraceptives.

Abstract: Background High fertility among young people aged 15-24 years is a public health concern in Uganda. Unwanted pregnancy, unsafe induced abortions and associated high morbidity and mortality among young women may be attributed to low contraceptive use. This study aims at exploring reasons for low contraceptive use among young people.

Cohort Reproductive Patterns in Low‐Fertility Countries

Abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive picture of levels and trends of contemporary fertility in low-fertility countries of Europe North America Oceania and East Asia. Cohort fertility approach was applied to study the changes in womens childbearing patterns. Among the various findings it is noted that the levels trends and age patterns of cohort fertility for women born between 1930 and 1960 in Western countries differed from those in the formerly socialist countries. In most Western countries the decline of completed cohort fertility has been in progress starting with women born in the 1930s and women born around 1960 are likely to complete their fertility with values decidedly below the replacement level. While in the formerly socialist countries completed cohort fertility remained within narrow bands and was relatively steady starting with the cohorts born in the 1930s until the cohorts of the late 1950s; thereafter completed cohort fertility declined from one cohort to the next for women born during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In almost all industrialized and postindustrial societies women born during the 1960s and early 1970s are experiencing lower fertility at comparable ages than women born earlier.

The risk of adverse reproductive and developmental disorders due to occupational pesticide exposure: an overview of current epidemiological evidence

Abstract: The epidemiological studies presented in this paper refer to the association between agricultural occupation of parents and the incidence of infertility, congenital malformations, miscarriage, low birthweight, small-for-gestational-age (SGA) birth, preterm delivery and stillbirth. The results of the analyses showed that employment in agriculture increases the risk of specific morphological abnormalities in sperm, including the decreased sperm count per ejaculate and declined percentage of viable sperm. In general, no effect of exposure to pesticides on sexual hormones was observed. The data on the effect of employment in agriculture on the time to pregnancy are unequivocal, but most of them suggest that there is a relationship between the decreased fecundability ratio and pesticide exposure. Nor does the research on the sex ratio of offspring provide explicit results. The analyses indicate that parental employment in agriculture could increase the risk of congenital malformations in the offsprings, particularly such as orofacial cleft, birthmarks in the form of hemangioma as well as musculoskeletal and nervous system defects. The data on the effect of occupational exposure to pesticides on birthweight are inconsistent. Although most of epidemiological studies do not reveal a significantly increased risk of SGA, a slower pace of fetal development corresponding to SGA in the population of women exposed to pyrethroids has been recently reported. There are also some indications that exposure to pesticides may contribute to stillbirth and female infertility. The literature review suggests a great need to increase awareness of workers who are occupationally exposed to pesticides about their potential negative influence on fertility and pregnancy outcome. In the light of existing although still limited evidence of adverse effects of pesticide exposure on fertility during the preconceptual period, it is necessary to reduce the exposure to pesticides.