Effects of women's education on postpartum practices and fertility in urban Nigeria.

This study examines the influence of women's education on postpartum practices and fertility in Ilorin, a Nigerian urban community. Using life-table survival analysis to estimate breastfeeding and abstinence durations and the Cox Proportional Hazards Model to estimate relative risk of weaning and terminating abstinence, women's education was found to have a strong negative relationship with breastfeeding and postpartum abstinence. The use of contraception was low in this community and marital fertility for educated women was higher than for illiterate women. Policy implications of the findings and recommendations are discussed.