BIRTH-ORDER, INTERPREGNANCY INTERVAL AND BIRTH OUTCOMES AMONG FILIPINO INFANTS

This study examines the effects of birth order and interpregnancy inte rval on birthweight, gestational age, weight-for-gestational age, infa nt length, and weight-for-length in a sample of 2063 births from a lon gitudinal study in the Philippines. First births are the most disadvan taged of any birth order/spacing group. The risks associated with shor t intervals (<6 months) and high birth order (fifth or higher) are con fined to infants who have both attributes; there is no excess risk ass ociated with short previous intervals among lower-order infants, nor f or high birth order infants conceived after longer intervals. This pat tern is observed for all five birth outcomes and neonatal mortality, a nd persists in models that control for mother's age, education, smokin g, family health history and nutritional status. Since fewer than 2% o f births are both short interval and high birth order, the potential r eduction in the incidence of low birthweight or neonatal mortality fro m avoiding this category of high-risk births is quite small (1-2%).