Definition
For children born in the three to five years preceding the survey, DELNURM_ALL (M3B_x) indicates whether a nurse or midwife (categories combined or not distinguished) assisted with the child's delivery.
DELNURM_ALL consists of a set of six separate variables, covering the most recent birth (DELNURM_01) up to the sixth-most-recent birth (i.e., DELNURM_02, DELNURM_03, DELNURM_04, DELNURM_05, and DELNURM_06) during the reference period prior to the survey. If DELNURM_ALL is included in a data extract, all these separate variables are included in a researcher's data file.
For surveys including this question, information for this variable was collected on all births, up to a maximum of six, in the reference period. 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 DELNURM_06 would not be available for that survey in IPUMS-DHS.
Some samples in the "DEL" series include categories that can be consolidated into a single response. IPUMS-DHS uses supplemental programming to combine these responses in a standard variable, such as DELNURM_ALL, while preserving the separate responses in country-specific variables.
For example, a given sample might include separate categories for nurse and midwife that could be combined to create a more comprehensive response category. See Comparability for more information on the specific categories in this variable.
