Easy Access to Water Causes Baby Boom

A shorter trip to get water boosted the birth rate in Ethiopian villages.

 

Improving access to clean water can cause unexpected health problems, suggests a study in Ethiopia. Cutting down a woman?s long trek to get water can boost her fertility. But bumping up birth rates worsens childhood malnutrition overall, nature.com reveals.

 

It is widely accepted that a cleaner water supply will enhance the health of those in developing countries. But few studies have tested how such installations affect a village as a whole.

 

Two researchers examined what happened after water taps were plumbed into several rural villages in southern Ethiopia between 1996 and 2000. They gathered information on children?s births and deaths before and after the water supply arrived, and compared the data to that collected from settlements without a new tap.

 

As they expected, the taps slashed the death rate among children by half, at least partly because they cut infectious diseases spread in dirty water. More surprisingly, the researchers found that women were, each month, three times more likely to give birth in the years after the tap was introduced.

 

The increase in birth rate did not seem to be explained by factors such as changes in the women?s age, overall health or prosperity. The researchers suggest that the women?s fertility may have soared because they had stopped burning up energy trekking to and from distant water supplies. The women had previously spent up to six hours per day fetching water in extremely heavy clay pots.

 

The women?s fertility may have been partly dampened by this strenuous exercise, much as athletes often experience a drop in fertility from excessive training. When the women had to walk only 15 minutes to a village tap, their fertility shot up.

 

This boost in birth rate takes a toll on children?s health. The investigators found that kids were more likely to be malnourished, based on their height and weight, in villages with taps than in those without.

 

This could be simply because families are sharing their scarce food between more children. Or perhaps low birth-weight babies, who previously would not have survived the trauma of birth, are now surviving but not thriving.

Iran Daily

 

I would have anticipated the enhanced life expectancy, but would not have anticipated the dramatic increase in the birth rate. I surely wouldn't have anticipated the increased malnourishment that resulted. Hopefully this study will lead to a more comprehensive approach.

very interesting...

the malnourishment really suprises me, I would think that it would decrease with fresh water.

I am rather shocked you guys are finding this shocking. It all makes sense.

 

Women are having more kids because I bet they are having less complications because they are not getting as sick as they were. I am sure diseased water affects the reproductive system in a way so when you clean up the water, things in the body work better. Makes sense right?

 

As far of the malnourishment, I bet it has something to do with the women having so many kids. All of a sudden with a surge in population there is more than likely less food to go around, and there is not more income in the families, so they can't afford more food, or really find it. Thus, malnourishment sets in.

I am rather shocked you guys are finding this shocking. It all makes sense.

 

Women are having more kids because I bet they are having less complications because they are not getting as sick as they were. I am sure diseased water affects the reproductive system in a way so when you clean up the water, things in the body work better. Makes sense right?

 

As far of the malnourishment, I bet it has something to do with the women having so many kids. All of a sudden with a surge in population there is more than likely less food to go around, and there is not more income in the families, so they can't afford more food, or really find it. Thus, malnourishment sets in.

 

 

 

well, you put it that way it makes sense