OUR BIRTH RATE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 313, 22 June 1945, Page 11

OUR BIRTH RATE

(Written for "The Listener’ by DR

H. B.

TURBOTT

Director of the Division of School Hygiene)

INCE this World War began there has been a flood of marriages. We needed this flood, for our birthrate was draining away fast previously. In 1935 at 16.17 per 1000 we touchedgthe lowest level for the previous 20 years. In 1941 the rate of 22.81 reached a record height for two decades. The tentative figure for 1944 is 21.59 still well up on pre-war years. War marriages have brought war babies and our birth-rate is up; will it stay up after the war? Not unless there is some long-term planning by ourselves, individually, and collectively as the State. The future of our land depends on the personal and individual decision of each woman as to whefner she is going to have any babies at ali, or limit her family, or have sufficient children to keep the birth-rate rising. Marriages will not lessen, but contraceptives and abortions are being used more and more to prevent or limit the family. The number of married women without children is increasing in our country. Some Can't Help It Some childless couples, of course, cannot help it. They want a family, but are apparently sterile. To accept this situation as unalterable would be unwise unless it had been ‘medically investigated. It is of little use having treatment by Vitamin E or glandular extracts and injections so long as the causes behind sterility remain unravelled. Such treatments are gambles without clinical examination of both partners, The husband alone is responsible, according to one sterility expert, for 10 per cent. of barrenness, and in conjunction with the wife

he is concerned with a further 30 per cent. The prevailing custom is to blame

the wife for sterility. The determination | of the causes of sterility calls for quite skilled diagnostic work, using laboratory and other modern aids. A doctor accustomed and interested in this work will soon determine the fertility or otherwise of both partners and suggest treatment where there is need. We must be realists. More and more married coyples are planning the size of their family, and the number of children) is being reduced by this planning. The reasons may not be selfish — a limited income will do more for one or two children than for more, and give the few a better start in life. Two world wars in our time have made women doubt the advisability of a family. Conveniently, contraceptive knowledge has become available to all, and research has improved its reliability. Where bad advice has been followed, abortions are being sought to rectify mistakes. Society should step in to try to tip the scales in favour of a family. The cost of rearing children should be offset and this without any means test. A family must have a home, not a flat, and the larger the family the bigger the home needed. Some method of cheapening the family man’s rent would help. At, and after delivery-time, and when the family grows in size, mother needs help in the home. She also needs better antenatal and maternity hospital service, and child welfare knowledge, to lessen fears of child-bearing and rearing.