I should like to discuss both the demographic and public health implications of the matters which have arisen at this meeting.

There are clearly some areas of consensus: we all agree that lactation is of fundamental importance, and that the birth interval is important, both for the health of the mother and child and with regard to fertility. Obviously, the longer the birth interval, the fewer births a woman will have during her reproductive life. A number of schemes were presented yesterday to show that in traditional societies with very long birth intervals there will be a reduced total fertility.