Maternal formal education and the four-child policy in Nigeria.

A cross-sectional survey was done in the puerperium of 320 mothers who delivered at Ogun State University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, Nigeria over a period of three months. The patients were stratified according to their parities in relation to their levels of formal education. The results showed that those with the least formal education were the most parous (p less than 0.005) and had the highest perinatal deaths. The difference between perinatal deaths suffered by mothers with no formal education and those with post-secondary school education was statistically significant (p less than 0.05). No association was demonstrated between the level of formal education and the delivery of low birthweight infants. When compared with grandmultiparae (parity greater than or equal to 5), primipara had more formal education (p less than 0.005). Therefore, for a successful implementation of the four-child policy in Nigeria, a concerted effort must be made to encourage maternal formal education. This should be to at least secondary school level.