Definition
For women who gave birth in the last three to five years, ANCARENURM_ALL (M2B_x) indicates whether, in response to an open-ended question, they reported that a nurse or midwife (categories combined or not distinguished) gave antenatal care.
ANCARENURM_ALL consists of a set of up to six separate variables, covering the most recent birth (ANCARENURM_01) up to the sixth-most-recent birth (i.e., ANCARENURM_02, ANCARENURM_03, ANCARENURM_04, ANCARENURM_05, and ANCARENURM_06) during the reference period prior to the survey. If ANCARENURM_ALL is included in a data extract, all these separate variables are included in a researcher's data file.
For many surveys, particularly those taken after 2000, this information was collected for only the most recent birth (ANCARENURM_01) and, in a few cases, the second-most-recent birth (ANCARENURM_02). Surveys in which the data were collected for only the most recent births are noted in the comparability section.
For other surveys, information for this variable was collected on all births, up to a maximum of six, in the reference period; exceptions in which data were collected on only the most recent birth(s) are noted in the comparability section. In many cases, data were hypothetically collected on up to six births, but no women in the survey had so many births (e.g., no woman had 4 or more births in 3 years, or had 5 or 6 births in 5 years). If, for example, no woman in a survey had 6 births in five years and only blank values were included in the original DHS file, then ANCARENURM_06 would not be available for that survey in IPUMS-DHS.
Some samples in the "ANCARE" series, such as ANCARENURM_ALL, include categories that can be consolidated into a single response. IPUMS-DHS uses supplemental programming to combine these responses in a standard variable while preserving the separate responses in country-specific variables.
For example, a given sample might include separate response categories for nurse and midwife that could be combined to create the more comprehensive response category in ANCARENURM_ALL. See Comparability for more information on the specific categories included in this variable for relevant samples.
