Effects of Reproductive Behaviour on Infant Mortality of French-Canadians During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Nault, François; Desjardins, Bertrand; Légaré, Jacques

doi:10.1080/0032472031000144596

Cited by 36 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Viewed another way, the data suggest a pattern of extended breastfeeding which lasted for about 14 months. This is similar to the 14-month breastfeeding interval found by Henripin (1954) for 18th century Quebec (cited in Nault et al, 1990). Although the St. Thomas' results cannot be directly compared to historic Canadian studies that use measures of fertility to detect breast-feeding, they are in line with studies by Nault and colleagues (1990) and Thornton and Olson (1991) who infer breastfeeding from an inter-birth interval of 18 months or more following the birth of a child who survived the 1st year of life.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Investigating the weaning process in past populations

Herring

Saunders

Katzenberg

1998

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The 19th century St. Thomas'Anglican churchyard in Belleville, Ontario, Canada is associated with a large and well-preserved infant skeletal collection (n = 149) and good-quality parish records that document interments in the graveyard (1821-1874). By using a combination of historical demographic and stable nitrogen isotope analyses on the parish records and skeletal remains, respectively, a general pattern of extended nursing for about 14 months, introduction of foods other than breast milk by around 5 months of age, and variation in breast-feeding and weaning behaviours were detected for St. Thomas' infants. The results demonstrate that it is possible to go beyond the concept of weaning age to explore the weaning process in past populations when appropriate and large samples of documentary and skeletal data are available.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Investigating the weaning process in past populations

Herring

Saunders

Katzenberg

1998

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Socioeconomic differences were not very pronounced during the first 100 years of colonization: the vast majority of the population shared the same living conditions, which were rural in nature (Nault et al, 1990). As in any historical population, however, there is a general under-registration of infant deaths (because some babies died before their baptism, for example; see Nault et al, 1990). Nevertheless, working with 'apparent' or 'observed' mortality is fairly reasonable provided that under-registration of births and deaths is independent of the variables studied.…”

Section: Data and Selection Of Casesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Mother’s Death and Child Survival: The Case of Early Quebec

et al. 2004

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of this paper is to account for the effect of mother's death on child survival in a historical population. Using comprehensive data on the early French Canadian population of Quebec, evidence is provided for a higher risk of dying for motherless children that remains significant over all childhood and long after the death of the mother. The specific effect of the loss of maternal care was estimated by comparing mortality before and after mother's death, furnishing a means to control for family heterogeneity. No differential in investment between genders was detected before age 3, but older girls suffered a three-fold higher susceptibility to mother's death than their male counterparts. This suggests that grown-up girls assuming the responsibilities of the missing mother had a lower chance of survival.

show abstract

“…According to the main literature (Nault, Desjardins, and Legare 1990;Dollberg et al 1996;Joseph et al 2005), infant mortality increases with the number of siblings, although the first child tends to exhibit a higher infant mortality than succeeding children. By contrast, maternal age at birth has no significant protective effect on infant mortality, as Astolfi et al (2009) have pointed out in analyzing more recent Sardinian data.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For women, it is well known that childbearing and neonatal mortality are generally affected by the mother's age at birth or by the birth order of the child (Nault, Desjardins, and Legare 1990;Dollberg et al 1996;Astolfi, Ulizzi, and Zonta 2002;Joseph et al 2005;Astolfi et al 2009;. Previous studies of Sardinian women of reproductive age showed that in the areas of central-eastern Sardinia with a high prevalence of centenarians, late maternity is relatively common and perinatal and infant mortality is relatively low Contini et al 1989;Cavalli-Sforza et al 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%