Abstract
The open birth interval is the time since a woman's last birth. It reflects not only desire for contraception and child health services but also freedom for outside activities, employment, and personal autonomy. It merits attention from policy makers, program managers, and service providers.
Highlights
Every woman who has ever given birth has a most recent birth, and she stands at some point removed from it, in an “open interval.” Some women go on to another pregnancy and birth, but some never do, remaining permanently in the open interval
The open interval can be determined from a simple question: “How long has it been since your last birth?” Recent national surveys can provide a current snapshot, and changes through time can be detected by reference to earlier surveys
We use 2 figures to illustrate first, the character of the open interval distribution, and second, to show how the distribution differs by country and over time
Summary
Every woman who has ever given birth has a most recent birth, and she stands at some point removed from it, in an “open interval.” Some women go on to another pregnancy and birth, but some never do, remaining permanently in the open interval. Some women go on to another pregnancy and birth, but some never do, remaining permanently in the open interval. This interval is entirely different from the well-known “closed interval,” which pertains only to the time between 2 births in the past. The open interval can be determined from a simple question: “How long has it been since your last birth?” Recent national surveys can provide a current snapshot, and changes through time can be detected by reference to earlier surveys. This study was exploratory in nature, rather than an investigation of a specific hypothesis It required assembling the first general body of empirical information on interval lengths, and it included the following research questions: Currently, how are women distributed by the age of their youngest child?. We discuss our findings for these questions and show how the open interval distribution, based upon a single question in national surveys, can usefully augment other information for analytic and management purposes
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