Frequency Of Childbirth Among Pueblo Indians

Data pertaining to the frequency of childbirth in the Indian pueblo of San Juan, New Mexico, from 1899 to 1927 were obtained. The records which included 1076 children were secured from books of the adjacent parish. Of these only 282 could be verified, and they form the basis of this study. Children are always christened, usually within the first ten days. It was found that for the same mother, the modal interval between successive births of children who lived to be christened was approximately 25 months and the range 8 to 78 months. Although the data are skewed to the right, 90% of the cases are normally distributed around the mode between 8 and 42 months. The modal age at which women gave birth to viable children was 27 years and included 50% of the mothers; the range was from 13 to 45, and the distribution approximately normal. Since record taking was started in 1924, 8% of the children have died without being christened. If typical of the 27 year period covered by the records, this percent would not seriously affect the above results. This abstract comprises the entire "article," and has been copied verbatim. See refno 1137 for similar info.