Having an unintended birth is associated with maternal and child health outcomes, the mother-child relationship, and subsequent fertility. Unintended fertility likely also increases the risk of union dissolution for parents, but it is unclear whether this association derives from a causal effect or selection processes and whether it differs by union type. This article uses data from the 2002 Na...

Diagnosis of a child with Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy (DBMD) may impact future maternal reproductive choice; however, little is known about the reproductive patterns of mothers with a male child diagnosed with DBMD. Using population-based surveillance data collected by the muscular dystrophy surveillance, tracking, and research network, the proportion of mothers who conceived and deli...

The passage of the 1996 PRWORA (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act) transformed the U.S. welfare system from a federal entitlement program that emphasized cash assistance to poor families, primarily, to a state block grant that stressed time limits and work. More specifically, the law mandated lifetime time limits of five years for receipt of cash assistance (TANF...

In this paper, David Olds and Harriet Kitzman review the results of the experimental literature concerning the effectiveness of home visiting programs in improving the lives of children and families. Their extensive review concentrates on randomized trials, that is, those most methodologically rigorous studies of all in which families are randomly assigned to two groups, typically to receive ei...

BACKGROUND In Gujarat, India, a state led public private partnership scheme to promote facility birth named Chiranjeevi Yojana (CY) was implemented in 2005. Institutional birth is provided free of cost at accredited private health facilities to women from socially disadvantaged groups (eligible women). CY has contributed in increasing facility birth and providing substantially subsidized (but n...

Introduction In spite of emphasis on institutional delivery, a considerable number of births are being conducted at home and by traditional birth attendant (TBA). Institutional delivery is hypothesised to improve health seeking behaviour and health care practices related to infant and child care. In this paper we report that in a poorly performing district institutional delivery does not seem t...

This paper examines the net effect of birth order on child nutritional status in Bangladesh using data from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey, 2011 (BDHS). Analyses were restricted to 4,120 surviving, lastborn singleton children who were younger than 36 months at the time of the survey. Logistic regression was used to assess the association between birth order and child nutritional statu...