As we mentioned a few months ago, science says that the minimum time to have a baby, after the birth of another baby, is 18 months, and that the maximum time, to prevent complications, is 5 years.
That minimum of 18 months seems to be confirmed again because a recent study concludes that women who become pregnant again in less than 18 months after giving birth are more likely to be born prematurely.
Study Data
The study has been conducted at the Cincinnati Children Hospital Medical Center in Ohio (United States) and has been published in the journal 'BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology'.
To do the study, the researchers analyzed data from 454,716 live births of women with two or more pregnancies over a period of six years. They saw that of all pregnancies, 11% occurred between 12 and 18 months after the previous birth and that 2% happened before 12 months.
When it comes to seeing when babies were born, 53.3% of women giving birth before a year of having a baby gave birth before the 39th week of pregnancy. If we talk about those who had it before 18 months, it happened in 37.5% of cases. Premature babies are those born before week 37, but they wanted to make a cut also in week 39 because it has been seen that being born in weeks 37 or 38 is not the same as being born in the following weeks and it also carries certain health risks.
When they saw the results before week 37, they saw that they had another baby before 12 months there were 20.1% of premature births, which in those who had it before 18 months happened in 10% of the occasions and that in those who waited more than 18 months it happened in 7.7% of births.
Should couples space babies?
The big question after knowing these data is to what extent this should alter the planning of a family when it comes to having babies. The answer is a "depends on each family". Waiting a short time between pregnancies can cause the next baby to be born prematurely but it can also cause other problems because when a baby is born you are still taking care of a very young child, with all that it entails for the father, the mother and the other child, who has different needs from those of the newborn. But this is already a choice of each family and that is why I respond with a "depends".
In relation to prematurity, it should be taken into account in risk cases. For example, if a woman has given birth to a first premature child, or if she had a complicated pregnancy or a risky delivery, the ideal would be to wait at least 18 months To have the next baby.
But in this, as in everything, there are always people who more or less plan how and when and there are always those who do not plan anything and we will see what happens.
