Sir, Demographic transition in Iran has been very wide during recent years. As early as 1980, the pronatalist laws strongly were supported by social pressure. Population grew at a rate of more than 3% per year. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref> Then the population policy was changed and antynatalist policies replaced with pronatalist policies. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref> After the government initiated a major population control program, growth rate was decline. According the last national census, total fertility rate is 1.9 births per woman. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref> This is the largest and fastest fall in fertility ever recorded. Currently, after the control of the population growth, the society faced a new problem: old mothers. Some Demographic studies were shown that the age of mother at first pregnancy as well as the number of pregnancies in women more than 35 years have been rising. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref> One of the important reasons for this issue is the changes in reproductive behavior. There are some evidences to indicate that maternal age at first pregnancy is increased, including increasing marital age, increasing the coverage of contraception′s method, Extensive use of contraception immediately after marriage, changes in family function and lifestyle, gender equality and empowerment of women in new modern society and socioeconomic factors such as labor force participation in more educated women. It seems that most of women may be unaware of the implications of this decision such as its potential impact on their own health, the health of future children, and the possibility of age related sub-fertility. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref> Although information alone is insufficient, but it is recent serious challenges and there is a lack of studies concerning this issue. In conclusion, the present paper, particularly, is interested to give an alarm aboutthe timing of child-bearing to put on parenthood. </sec> <sec> <title>Acknowledgment

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Letter to Editor

Delayed child bearing: New serious challenge in Iran

Behboudi-Gandevani

Samira

Ziaei

Saeedeh

Khalajabadi-Farahani

Farideh

Department of Reproductive Health, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran Department of Reproductive Health, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran Population Studies and Research Centre in Asia and The Pacific, Tehran, Iran

Address for correspondence:Saeedeh Ziaei, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran ziaei sa@modares.ac.ir

January 2013

18 1 83 83

2013

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Sir, Demographic transition in Iran has been very wide during recent years. As early as 1980, the pronatalist laws strongly were supported by social pressure. Population grew at a rate of more than 3% per year. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref> Then the population policy was changed and antynatalist policies replaced with pronatalist policies. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref> After the government initiated a major population control program, growth rate was decline. According the last national census, total fertility rate is 1.9 births per woman. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref> This is the largest and fastest fall in fertility ever recorded. Currently, after the control of the population growth, the society faced a new problem: old mothers. Some Demographic studies were shown that the age of mother at first pregnancy as well as the number of pregnancies in women more than 35 years have been rising. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref> One of the important reasons for this issue is the changes in reproductive behavior. There are some evidences to indicate that maternal age at first pregnancy is increased, including increasing marital age, increasing the coverage of contraception′s method, Extensive use of contraception immediately after marriage, changes in family function and lifestyle, gender equality and empowerment of women in new modern society and socioeconomic factors such as labor force participation in more educated women. It seems that most of women may be unaware of the implications of this decision such as its potential impact on their own health, the health of future children, and the possibility of age related sub-fertility. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref> Although information alone is insufficient, but it is recent serious challenges and there is a lack of studies concerning this issue. In conclusion, the present paper, particularly, is interested to give an alarm aboutthe timing of child-bearing to put on parenthood. </sec> <sec> <title>Acknowledgment

The study was financially supported by Tarbiat Modaress University. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. We thank to Dr. Mojtaba Vaismoradi, honorary associate researcher in college of human and health hciences Swansea University, UK paper.

Abbasi-Shavazi

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2009 67 81

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Childbearing, the desire to have children, and awareness about the impact of age on female fertility among Finnish university students

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