Women’s Attitude for a Male Offspring and Related Family Planning Practices
Journal Title: National Journal of Community Medicine - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 12
Abstract
Background: Son preference in In-dia is widespread and deep rooted. Parents’ expectations of benefits and costs are biased in favour of sons. This therefore acts as the key motivation for the preference of male offspring. Women might con-tinue to bear children until the de-sired number of sons is reached. Methodology: A community based, cross-sectional study was carried out among 718 married women of reproductive age group selected by systematic random sampling. Results: The present study revealed that 63.1% women were of the opin-ion that it was necessary to have a male child. Women were more like-ly to be acceptors of contraception even if they had one son (38.8%) as compared to women having no sons (17.9%) and the relationship was found to be significantly asso-ciated. Women who accepted ter-minal method of contraception over spacing method was significantly higher among women having male offspring. Conclusions: The findings demon-strate that in settings like Uttar Pra-desh, focusing solely on family-size limitation may not be an effective strategy to promote family planning because it is women’s preference for sons – and not just family size – that plays a key role in determining if, when and how a woman regulates her fertility.
Authors and Affiliations
Nazish Rasheed, Zulfia Khan, Najam Khalique, Rambha Pathak
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP563665
- DOI -
- Views 130
- Downloads 0
Association between Maternal Age at Childbirth and Infant Health Outcome in a Prospective Birth Cohort from a Small Town Hospitals of Southern Gujarat
Introduction: The practice of child marriage resulting to teenage preg-nancy in rural India is deeply root-ed in cultural values. This leads to adolescent pregnancy and poor child carrying resulting poor infant heath out...
A Study on Acceptance to Voluntarily Participate in Breast Milk Bank Activities amongst Antenatal and Postnatal Women in Three Hospitals of Bhopal
Background: Pasteurised Donor human milk (PDHM) is regarded as "the next best" after the biological mother's breast milk. The aim of the study was to assess the awareness about breast milk banking among antenatal and pos...
Sex Ratio at Birth and its Determinants: A Cross Sectional Hospital Based Study
Introduction: Sex ratio is used to re-flect gender equity of the popula-tion. Sex ratio in India has shown an upward trend since Census 1991 but during the same period, child sex ratio (0-6 years) has shown a declining t...
A Study on Health Status of Urban School Children (7-18 Years): A School Based Cross Sectional Study
Background: School age is consid-ered as a dynamic period of growth and development because children undergo physical, mental, emotion-al and social changes. The health and nutritional status of school children is an ind...
Status of Sanitation in the Rural Areas of a Health Unit District, Tamil Nadu, India
Background: Sanitation is the key to better health. Even towards the end of the millennium development goal era, provision of sanitation still continues to be a challenge especial-ly in rural areas. Objectives: The pres...