CAMBRIDGE, England, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A British study says women who have their babies too close together face a higher risk of complications, including premature birth and even the baby's death.
The British Medical Journal reported the higher risk seems to exist independently of other risk factors such as a complicated first birth, young age and socioeconomic status.
The study, by Gordon Smith, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Cambridge University in England, showed women who had conceived within six months of the first, normal birth were more than two times as likely to give birth to an extremely premature baby (24 to 32 weeks), 60 percent more likely to give birth to a "moderately pre-term" baby (33 to 36 weeks), and the baby was more than three-and-a-half times more likely to die at birth.
Other experts said short pregnancy intervals don't give the mother time to recover her own nutritional status, HealthDay reported.
