Stop! Go! What Can We Learn About Family Planning From Birth Timing in Settler South Africa, 1835–1950?

We revisit the discussion on family limitation through stopping and spacing behavior before and during the fertility transition with a sample of 12,800 settler women's birth histories in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. Using cure models that allow us to separate those who stop childbearing from those who continue, we find no evidence of parity-specific spacing before the transition. We do find evidence of non-parity-based birth postponement before the transition. Increased stopping and parity-independent postponement characterized the beginning of the fertility transition, with increased parity-specific spacing following later in the transition phase.

How do parents deal with their children’s chronic kidney disease? A qualitative study

Background: Parents’ adaptation has an impact on the health outcomes of children with chronic kidney diseases (CKD). Identifying factors that affect parents’ adaptation is necessary to fully understand their adaptation status. This study aims to explore parents’ adaptation with their child chronic disease and to determine related factors.Methods: This was a qualitative study with a content analysis approach. Sixteen parents of children with CKD were selected by using the purposive sampling. The nursing PhD candidate performed semi-structured in-depth face-to-face interviews to collect data. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze data.Results: Two main categories were extracted from the data were “adaptation facilitators” and “adaptation barriers”. Adaptation facilitators supported by three sub-categories: “social support”, “positive aspects of life”, “spiritual beliefs”. Five sub-categories of “adaptation barriers” were revealed as follows: “parents’ confusion”, “the disease related issues”, “pressures from peers and acquaintances”, “inappropriate treatment conditions” and “children and family limitation”.Conclusions: Two types of factors that influence parents’ adaptation were identified. The treatment team must evaluate these factors to help parents to adapt to their child’s illness by identifying and eliminating the adaptation barriers, and identifying and using the adaptation facilitators.

The First Scottish Fertility Decline

The marked variations in the distribution of family sizes over time are further explored, as also are the major variations between women married to fathers in different occupations. The significance of very small families in fertility constraint is explored. The role in Scotland of possible methods of family limitation at different dates is examined, in the context of ongoing historical debates about when, if ever, most couples began consciously to ‘plan’ the size of their families, and at what point in their marriages they may have done so. In the same context, Scottish evidence is reviewed on the possible reasons for the timing of the onset of fertility decline and its spread through to the 1930s.