Questionnaire Text

Questionnaire form view entire document: text image

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?

If no: Enter N/A and continue with next woman
If yes: How many children born alive to you?

[] 1 Yes

Have died?

____ Male
____ Female

Questionnaire instructions view entire document: text image

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).

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

How many children born alive to you (or the respondent) have died?
Make the appropriate entries under columns for males and females.

This information is extremely important and it is difficult to obtain accurate data, because some respondents may fail to mention children who died very young or a long time ago. Probe by asking "Any male or female child who was born alive but only survived a few days or hours?"

Many respondents will be reluctant to talk about child deaths and become sad or upset that you are asking such questions. Be very tactful in such situations. Explain that you know the subject is painful but that the information is very important for calculation of death rates (mortality).