Close child spacing - what I would do

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.

She gave them some broth without any bread

And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

~Traditional nursery rhyme

As a birth professional, I was taught to parrot the statistic that outcomes are best with a minimum of 18 months from birth to the subsequent conception1.

Many now take it further to say that 3-4 years between is the gold standard.

A question I have always had: how much better are outcomes.

Because I’ve seen both:

The super closely spaced family where the children are born premature, sickly, need glasses and frequent medical interventions, whine incessantly and mother and children alike generally seem shortchanged.

ie, what Weston A Price described in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

(for what it’s worth, I’ve also seen families with long child spacing also have this pattern)

And, I’ve seen families with close child spacing where the children are robust, well mannered, and the fa…