In DHS surveys, information is collected on current, past, and cumulative fertility. Drawing on the birth history information collected in the survey, the chapter begins with a description of current fertility. This is followed by a description of differentials in fertility by background characteristics. Then, attention is focused on trends in fertility, which permits an examination of changes in age-specific fertility rates by time periods going back 20 years from the time of the survey.
The chapter also presents information on the cumulative fertility of female respondents in terms of the mean number of children ever born and the mean number of surviving children to women classified by five-year age groups.
The chapter also presents information on birth intervals for births in the five years preceding the survey, age at first birth for five-year age groups of women and information on teenage pregnancy and motherhood by single year of age for youngest survey respondents, i.e., women age 15-19. These data are important because they indicate the beginning of a woman’s reproductive life.
Birth/Pregnancy History
The indicators related to current fertility are calculated from the DHS birth history:
· A full birth history is a complete list of all children the woman has ever given birth to including their date of birth, sex, survival status, age (if alive), and age at death (if died). This is the form of birth history found in the majority of DHS surveys. Birth histories include all live births, including children who later died, but omit stillbirths, miscarriages or abortions. Birth histories are collected in chronological order from first to last.
· A truncated birth history is a list of all births since a particular date, typically for the five years preceding the survey. Truncated birth histories are used in many of the Malaria Indicator Surveys and are collected in reverse chronological order. Truncated birth histories may demonstrate different characteristics than a full birth history as births in the particular time period may be omitted, transferred out of the time period, transferred into the time period.
· A pregnancy history is a complete list of all pregnancies the woman has ever had, including all live births, stillbirths, miscarriages and abortions. Pregnancy histories have been used in surveys in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam, and in some special surveys such as the Afghanistan Mortality Survey, and the Ghana Maternal Health Surveys. In DHS-8, pregnancy histories are used in all DHS surveys in place of birth histories. In surveys using pregnancy histories, the birth history is extracted from the full pregnancy history and is found in the b* series variables. The full pregnancy history is also available in the recode files for these surveys, typically in an s2* series of variables in older surveys and in a p* series for DHS-8 surveys.