Asked for women aged 10 years and above
[Questions 34-38 were asked of female residents' age 10+.]

Total number of children ever born alive

37. What is the total number of children ever born alive?

Column 34 - 37: The total number of children ever born alive

This question is going to be asked for female member of a given household who are aged 10 years and above regarding the number of children they have ever born during life time
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(which includes children who are living with them, children who are dead and children who are living in other places). Nevertheless, Females whose age is less than ten years and members who are males of any age are excluded from being asked this question.

Before forwarding the question to the respondent, the enumerator should understand the concept of being "born alive". Being "born alive" means without considering the number of months the fetus stayed in its mother's womb, if the child breaths at the time of birth or if he/she shows life before or after the umbilical chord is cut; such as when the child experiences a heart beat, umbilical chord beat, crying, muscle movement etc?, it is only under this condition we come to say that the child is "born alive." What should be noted here is that if the child shows life even for a very little time and die soon no matter how long the pregnancy lasted, the child will be considered to be "born alive". However, in situation when the fetus dead in the womb and abortion cases are not taken in to an account.

Traditionally, some mothers consider their adopted children as their own biological children, so due attention must be taken while asking the question to the respondent. What is required to collect is the information regarding the number of children ever born by their biological parents. For this purpose three separate questions (questions regarding children who are living with their parents, who are not living with them and who are dead) are built to collect the required information on the number of children ever born by a given respondent. This method helps parents to remember their entire biological children; so we can get the exact information on the number of ever born children. But adopted children are not counted and therefore enumerators should take care while collecting the information.

Column 38: Births during the last 12 months
Did you have a live birth during the last 12 months? If yes enter the number of live births, otherwise enter '0'.

The respondent will be asked whether they gave birth to a child who is "born alive" during the 12 month prior to the date of enumeration i.e. from 11 October 1993 - October 10, 1994 and the answer will be recorded on the space provided.

To understand the concept "born alive" it is important to note the explanation given in columns 34 - 37. Moreover, in column 38 children who are counted must be born during the reference period (the 12 months prior to the date of enumeration i.e. from 11 October 1993 - October 10, 1994). Some times respondents may tell all of their children without taking in to an account the given reference period. Therefore it is crucial for the enumerator to explain all these concepts to the respondent.

If the respondent gave birth to a child during the last 12 months prior to the census date, the number of children will be filled on the space provided. However, if they didn't, "0" will be written in the space provided. Most of the time women give birth only once in a year so write "1" but in condition when a woman gives birth to a twin children during the reference period "2" will be written.