Attitudes of saudi women of hail region towards multi-parity

Objective: To determine the number of children, association of various socio-demographic and birth interval related factors with multi-parity in Saudi women. Methods: This descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in Hail university and Maternity and childcare Hospital, Hail Saudi Arabia. One hundred and eighteen (118) married females having age 20 to 45 years, who presented in outdoor patients department of the hospital, were included. Married females having no child were excluded from analysis. A questionnaire containing information regarding marital information, child age and perceptions about multi-parity was filled by the participants. Chi-square t-test was used to determine the association of knowledge regarding the appropriate birth intervals with number of children taking p-value <0.05 as significant. Results: Mean age of females at the time of marriage was 22.21+4.42 years and mean age at the time of birth of first child was 23.92+4.47 years. There were 59.3% females who obtained college level education and 20.3% had high school education whereas only 2.5% were having master level education. Habit of breast feeding was found in about half 49.1% females. Most of the females (53.4%) gave birth to 5-6 children, 22.9% were having equal to or more than 7 children. There was no association of educational status, breast feeding, mode of last delivery and knowledge regarding benefits of breast feeding on number of children. Conclusion: Number of Children born to per Saudi Women is 5-6 on average. There is no effect of Socio-demographics variables and knowledge regarding benefits of birth intervals on number of children born to per Saudi women.