• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Sunday, October 5, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Keeping babies alive will lower population growth – new research

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 22, 2023
in Health
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
Child in Marrakech
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Keeping babies alive will lower population growth – new research 

Child in Marrakech

Credit: (c) Corey Bradshaw, Flinders University

Keeping babies alive will lower population growth – new research 

 

New research showing high infant mortality rates are contributing to an incessant rise of the global human population supports arguments for greater access to contraception and family planning in low- and middle-income nations.

 

In an article published in PLOS ONE, research led by Professor Corey Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology from Flinders University and Peter Le Souëf, Professor of Paediatrics from The University of Western Australia has found that with higher baby death rates and larger household sizes (as an indicator of population density), fertility rates are higher. 

 

In the first study of its kind, Professor Bradshaw, says it provides a compelling argument that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for reducing infant mortality can be accelerated by increasing access to family planning.

 

“Although it sounds counterintuitive, higher baby death rates are linked to higher population growth because the more babies a women loses, the more children she is likely to have. Family planning, including access to quality contraception, enables women to plan pregnancies better and therefore reduce infant mortality to curb the so-called ‘replacement’, or ‘insurance’ effect,” Professor Bradshaw says. 

 

“We evaluated six conditions thought to influence a woman’s fertility — availability of family planning, quality of family planning, education, religion, mortality, and socio-economic conditions, across 64 low- to middle-income countries.”

 

The research specifically tested whether

  • increasing the availability of family planning is associated with reduced fertility;
  • increasing the quality of family-planning services is associated with reduced fertility;
  • increasing years of female education is associated with reducing fertility;
  • increased fertility is observed in countries with a higher prevalence of adherents of Catholicism or Islam, two main religions that expressly dictate elements of fertility and/or family structure;
  • a larger mean household size is positively correlated with fertility, and lower socio-economic conditions; and
  • higher mortality (both infant and maternal) is associated with higher fertility.

 

Co-author Dr Melinda Judge from The University of Western Australia’s Medical School says, “Keeping babies alive actually reduced average fertility and helps put the brakes on population growth. Essentially, higher infant mortality and a larger household size increased fertility, whereas greater access to any form of contraception decreased fertility.”

 

“Interestingly, female education, home visits by health workers, quality of family planning services, and religious adherence all had weak, if any, contribution at the scale of entire countries.” 

 

Professor Bradshaw says the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 3 (good health and wellbeing) and 5 (gender equality) emphasise the basic right to exercise control over sexual and reproductive health through universal access to family planning. 

 

The world is not on track to meet Goal 3 to reduce global maternal mortality to less than 70 per 100,000 live births and end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age by 2030. 

 

“Our results show the best pathway toward reaching these targets is by providing readily available and high-quality family-planning services. These actions will not only to decrease fertility rates, they will also to lower the number of unintended pregnancies, infant deaths, and maternal deaths.

 

“These findings support the notion that to encourage continued declines in global fertility, both infant survival rates plus access to contraception need to be increased”, explains Professor Bradshaw.

 

Co-author Chitra Saraswati also of The University of Western Australia’s Medical School says, “Recommendations for measures to decrease infant mortality emphasise improving the quality of antenatal care, increasing the number of trained healthcare staff at births, and improving postnatal care for both infants and mothers. Given the evidence that large households can worsen child health, improving living conditions to ameliorate high-density living could also indirectly result in lower fertility.” 

 

“Allowing parents to choose family planning by providing readily available, modern methods of contraception can be expected to improve infant survival as well as reduce maternal mortality. This is because parents can plan and space their births, and being able to decide to have fewer children also has the potential to facilitate better investment in the overall health and well-being of families. It emphasises the importance of providing access to contraception as a direct contribution to decreasing infant mortality.”

 

“If we don’t act now to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, fertility will rise, more children will die, and more women will succumb to birth-related deaths,” Professor Bradshaw concludes. 

 

Lower infant mortality, lower household size, and more access to contraception reduce fertility in low- and middle-income nations. Bradshaw, CJA, C Perry, MA Judge, CM Saraswati, J Heyworth, PN Le Souëf. 2023. PLOS ONE. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280260



Journal

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0280260

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Lower infant mortality, lower household size, and more access to contraception reduce fertility in low- and middle-income nations.

Article Publication Date

22-Feb-2023

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Empowering Older Adults: Shared Decision-Making in Nursing

October 5, 2025

Boosting Malonylation Site Detection with AlphaFold2

October 5, 2025

Assessing Drug Interactions in Neonatal Care Software

October 5, 2025

Unveiling AGC2 Modulators through Advanced Assay Techniques

October 5, 2025

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    94 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    92 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    71 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Empowering Older Adults: Shared Decision-Making in Nursing

Whole Genome Analysis Uncovers Variations in Goat Pigmentation

Boosting Malonylation Site Detection with AlphaFold2

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Success! An email was just sent to confirm your subscription. Please find the email now and click 'Confirm' to start subscribing.

Join 62 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.