Length of interbirth intervals in female psychiatric patients and controls

Length of 121 interbirth intervals for 77 multiparous female psychiatric patients was contrasted with the length of 605 interbirth intervals for 385 matched population-control women to test a clinical observation that female psychiatric patients often have long intervals between consecutive reproductions. No significant difference was found between all patients versus all controls or between any patient diagnostic group versus controls in studying the length of only those intervals including or subsequent to the first psychiatric hospitalization. Intervals during which this hospitalization occurred were significantly longer for all patients combined, for schizophrenic-like-psychotics, and for psychopaths, each as compared with its parity-matched control group. The clinical observation was not generally supported by the current data.