Authors : Ambrose Akinlo, Erhabor S. Idemudia, Mary O. Obiyan and Bola L. Solanke
Abstract: In Nigeria, despite laws aimed at protecting girls from early marriage the practice remains prevalent; the resistance of forced marriage by a 14 years old who poisoned her husband within days of the marriage has brought the issue to the fore of public discourse. Also, indicators of maternal health outcomes in the country remain very poor and most of the MDG goals were not met at the end of 2015. This study examined the relationships between 2 variables with implications for maternal health outcomes-child marriage and high-risk fertility. Using the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, analysis was based on women’s individual recode dataset among women who were married/cohabiting and aged 20-24 at the time of the survey. High-risk fertility was generated from the kids recode dataset and merged to the women’s dataset. Only 6011 women who met the inclusion criteria were analysed. We use binary logistic regression to predict the odds of exposure to high-risk fertility. We estimate that among ever married women, currently aged 20-24 with at least one live birth, three-quarters (74%) were married as children and above a third (35%) of all births in the last 5 years were avoidable high-risk births. Higher educational attainment and household wealth were both found to be inversely related to child marriage. The adjusted odds of avoidable high-risk births for marriage before age 15 is 4.66 (p<0.001, CI = 3.74-5.80) and 3.25 (p<0.001, CI = 2.70-3.93) for marriage between ages 15-17, compared to marriage at 18-24 years. Increased odds of avoidable high-risk births are also, significantly associated with having 4 or more births while education and four or more antenatal visits during pregnancy are significant predictors of reduced odds of high risk fertility. This study concluded that the high level of child marriage in Nigeria is significantly associated with high-risk fertility among the women. This implies that the increasing risks of adverse maternal health outcomes in Nigeria is partly the consequence of child marriage practices. Female education, poverty reduction and use of antenatal services are viable options to address the malaise.
Ambrose Akinlo, Erhabor S. Idemudia, Mary O. Obiyan and Bola L. Solanke, 2018. Child Marriage and High-Risk Fertility Behaviour in Nigeria: Findings from a Cross-Sectional Survey. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 15: 59-68.