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In Table II the numbers are subdivided according to agegroup
and previous fertility. The age-grouping is by five-yearly
periods, e.g., under 20 years, 20-25 years, etc. The percentage
figures read horizontally, e.g., of 778 women who attended during
their first pregnancy, 65 or 8.3 per cent, were under 20 years when
they first attended. The percentage figure at the foot of the table
shows the percentage in the different age-periods, irrespective of
the degree of fertility.
This table shows that 54 per cent, of the primiparæ were
pregnant before they were 25 years old, and that only 11 per cent,
were over 30 years old. There is no reason to suppose that these
percentages are not representative of primiparæ in Leyton
generally.
The percentage of all women attending before 30 years of age
was 58.7. Dr. Stocks, in the Ministry of Health "Report on an
Investigation into Maternal Mortality" gives a table showing the
age distribution of mothers of legitimate children born in certain
years in England and Wales. Out of 1,000 births in 1931, 537 of
the mothers were under 30 years of age, i.e., 53.7 per cent. Although
my table is not strictly comparable with his because the age was
taken during pregnancy (two-thirds in the last 16 weeks of pregnancy)
and not after childbirth, the figures suggest that the age of