How many children would the average woman have in her lifetime if she did not us

1. 63

   Heather Jacobsposted 12 years ago

   How many children would the average woman have in her lifetime if she did not use birth control?
   
   Assuming she was conceiving naturally. What do you think?

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   mommygonebonkersposted 12 years ago

   I think you just have to look at the Duggards from that 19 (or is it 20) Kids and Counting show )

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      Heather Jacobsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Wow 19 is sure a lot of children! She must be constantly pregnant.

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3. 59

   sparklelynnposted 12 years ago

   I like the comment from mommygonebonkers. The duggards defiantly have a lot of children. although If a woman never took birth control she could have no children at all because it could be that she can't have children. This use to be very rare cases but not so much anymore.

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      Heather Jacobsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Great point. Some women would not be able to have any children for various reasons.

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4. 89

   modern housewifeposted 10 years ago

   History shows that the average family size was 7 children before birth control was invented (based on statistics from 1800-1990).  However, that does mean that if you choose not to use birth control, you will have that many children. Natural Family Planning couples, for example, have 3 children on average, with 18% having 4 children.
   
   Also, women did not use to have children spaced so close together before the use of formula.  Breastfeeding, specifically ecological breastfeeding,  has been proven to space pregnancies effectively, the average length of infertility after birth being 14.6 months. 
   
   Natural family planning allows women to identify her fertile days each month, allowing couples to avoid intercourse if they do not wish to have a child.  It is not birth control.  It is over 98% effective, based 100% on science and a completely safe and moral alternative to birth control. 
   
   Even couples in 3rd world countries can practice NFP to avoid pregnancy.  It is completely free and requires no electricity.  If tomorrow our whole society collapsed, women could still effectively space and limit their family size.
   I have written several articles on NFP and ecological breastfeeding if you are interesting in learning more.

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5. 84

   gmwilliamsposted 8 years ago

   
   
   Michelle Duggar & other megamoms are examples of how many children women would have if they did not use birth control.  However, if the average woman did not use birth control, the number of children could vary depending upon the woman's level of fertility.  Some women would have 0-4 children, most women would have on the average 7 children, & a few would have upwards of ten to the twenties.

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   g4408380posted 7 years ago

   Hi dear. Maybe I can help you with some information.  it’s recommended that women wait 2-4 weeks after giving birth to have sex again.  Plus, ovulation would need to start again.  If a woman is breastfeeding - she may not ovulate for weeks, months…or until she stops nursing totally.  I still wasn’t ovulating for 2 months after I stopped nursing my daughter (when she was 11 mos. old).  But my friend’s mom said that approximately 6 weeks after the birth of the baby…her cycle started right back up again & she typically nursed her children for about 18 months.  She had 7 kids. And if a birth was complicated & needed a c-section the recovery time is longer.  AND, if a woman has a c-section, it’s likely a doctor would recommend c-sections for the following birth. I think there are too many variables to accurately guess this. But I got some help groom all pregnancy related issues when I met my long time friend, a gynecologist in Ukraine whose tips helped me in magical ways during pregnancy.

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   tamarawilhiteposted 7 years ago

   For most of human history, the average lifetime fertility rate was 6-8 children to keep the population stable. Yes, 2/3 of children died before growing up for most of human history, while some lived to adulthood only to die in the fighting. That's why you have twice as many female ancestors as male ones.
   Women who had far more children didn't have many more children survive due to her and their weakened health and hunger. That is why a Scottish woman in the late 1700s with 12 children averaged 3.5 children growing up while a woman with 8 had 3 grow up. The odds of survival for those "extra" children was nearly nil. But most women couldn't have that many children, and it wasn't just due to death in childbirth being a risk for every birth.
   Disease and malnutrition limited the fertility of some, while untreatable sexually transmitted diseases impaired the fertility of others.
   The population boom that started in the late 1800s was the result of better sanitation and nutrition from improving transportation networks. Now women could have 8-12 children and half grew up. Hence the population doubled for two generations before the Baby Boomers even showed up.
   If we returned to those horrible, hungry, sickening (literally) times, women would have to have 7 children on average to keep the population stable. If we returned to the 1800s, it would be more like 4.

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   sonamgupta2107posted 7 years ago

   Hi dear. I felt your question very interesting and I will try to give the answer best I can.  I would’ve thought that in most cases there would be a point where the woman’s “lifetime” would be in an inverse relationship to the number of children she gave birth too. In so far as the stress on her body would mean that after a certain number of births she would see her life expectancy decline as she continued to get pregnant. The other factor that you haven’t taken into consideration is that Mother Nature has her own ways of spacing out births. For example, one’s chances of getting pregnant are considerably lower if one is breast feeding a baby. It’s not perfect, which is why people who definitely want to space their kids out need to take further precautions, but it’s pretty effective. I’ve read that in non-nomadic societies, children tend to be about two years apart on average, but in nomadic societies, it’s more like four years. I may not have those averages exactly right, but I believe I’m pretty close. Also, women whose bodies are under stress are less likely to become pregnant as well. I would think to care for, say, 10 or 12 kids is at least as stressful as anything else. What you really need, I think, is some kind of historical data on how many children women tend or tended to have in societies that used no form of birth control and in which having lots of babies was encouraged. But it can be frustrating to try to solve these intimate little puzzles from history because even if the society was one that had a form of writing, that doesn’t mean there are any records that, can answer this question. I hope my answer helps.

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