Form B: Household Questionnaire Part 3: Fertility Information of Females Aged 15 and Over Listed in Column 2 of Part 2
Fertility Information
5 Particulars of Birth in the last 12 months
Any child born alive to the woman during the last 12 months?
(Give actual number like 1,2,... If none, write 0)
_ Male
_ Female
Column 4: Number of Children Born
110. The questions in this Column have been designed in such a way as to elicit the vital information we require without embarrassing the respondents. We have to find out the total number of children born to a woman, number of children living and number of children dead among them. Please remember that the nature of responses you will obtain will depend, to a great extent, on how tactfully you put these questions. Great care must be taken to choose words which, while retaining the exact meaning of the questions, will not give rise to any emotional feelings. Finally, please note that the word "children" in the questions refers to the woman's own offspring of whatever age and sex and not the children of a brother, sister or husband or other relative or non-relative or adopted ones who may be living with her. You should also note that some of the respondents may be old and their memory weak. You should, therefore, exercise patience and help them to recollect the correct number of children born to them. If no child is reported for any of the questions, write 00 in the column concerned.
Note: It is common experience that the birth of the child may not be reported readily if the child is not actually surviving at the time of enumeration. Infant deaths are still high in the country. There is a chance of a number of such cases being missed unless specifically questioned about. It is necessary to record all live births even if the child has died soon thereafter or had not survived to the day of enumeration. Where a woman first answers that no child was ever born to her, you may perhaps question her as follows: "It has been found in some houses that a child was born and had died soon after or a few days or months later and such cases had not been reported. It is my hope that there are no such cases here. Am I right?" This may bring in the required response. If she reports 'No' then you can be sure that no birth has been missed.
Columns 4: (a) and (b): How many Children have been born alive to you? (Separately by males in column (a) and females in Column (b))
115. This question is aimed at collecting information on births (separately as male or female birth) in the 12 months prior to the date of enumeration to all females aged 15 years and over. Please note that the number of children born alive, already recorded in Columns 4(a) and 4(b), include the child born alive to the woman in the last 12 months. In the case of older women (say beyond age 50) or widows or divorced women, there may not be any birth in the last 12 months generally. In their cases also you have to fill in this column by entering 0. Please, however, remember that occurrence of births is not entirely ruled out in such cases. Only if the child was born alive, you should record 1 under male or female as the case may be. Still birth, i.e., a child which is born dead should not be taken into account for this purpose. So you should make sure that every case of birth of a child born alive, even if it is not alive on the date of enumeration, is reported. You should not reckon it if the child was born lifeless. Suppose a child was born alive then died immediately after birth it is a live birth which should be reported. You have to make sure that any live birth that has occurred to a woman in the last one year is recorded whether the child is surviving till date of enumeration or not.
115.1 If the answer to this question is 'Yes', you should ask whether the child was born male or female. If male, record 1 under male and 0 under female. If female, record 0 under male and 1 under female. If the answer is 'No', enter 0 both under male and female. In case where the woman has had twins, please write 2 under male or female as the case may be. If it was 1 male and 1 female, record accordingly. If there were multiple births enter suitably following this procedure.