Drawing on the 1977 Haiti Fertility Survey, the first nationally representative survey of its kind in the country, Allman assembles a picture of Haitian childbearing in the 1970s and checks it against the 1971 census and a multiround demographic survey. Total fertility of roughly 5.5 children sits well below levels then recorded in parts of Africa and the Middle East, and rural rates run far above those of Port-au-Prince. He attributes the pattern to late and complex conjugal careers, prolonged breastfeeding, and a modest amount of contraceptive practice. Women reported wanting fewer than four children on average, and no preference for sons appeared. Only a quarter of those exposed to pregnancy were regulating fertility at all, and most of them relied on withdrawal, rhythm, or abstinence. Clinic records from the national family planning programme and the survey's own estimates of modern method use agree closely, which the author reads as evidence that the programme's statistics are sound.