E. For women, aged 15 to 49 years
[Questions 17-18 were asked of women aged 15 to 49]

17. Have you given any live birth?

Section E: For women aged 15 - 49 years
The purpose of questions 17 and 18 is to collect information for estimating fertility and infant and child mortality, preferably directly from the woman concerned.

Information on live births (fertility) should be obtained for all women aged 15 to 49 years. For all others, i.e. for women less than 15 years and those more than 49 years and all males, "N/A" should be recorded.

Information should be requested of all women 15-49 years, irrespective of their marital status or whether you think they have borne children or not. Efforts should be made to get responses from the women themselves and permission to do so should be obtained from the head of household. If the woman concerned is not present, someone else - preferably the head of household - should be used to answer the questions.

Definition of live birth
A child born alive is one who cries after being born. Thus, a live birth is a birth which results in a child that shows any sign of life irrespective of the time of period within which these signs are manifest.

Question 17: Children ever born
Identify all eligible women using the age of the woman. Check with question 2 for consistency; the number of children in question 2 must be equal or higher than the number in question 17 (the higher number in question 2 accepted because foster children also are eligible in that question).

p.25

There are four parts to this question and the order of asking them is as follows: