Definition
For women who gave birth in the last three to five years, ANCAREDOC_ALL (M2A_x) indicates whether a doctor gave antenatal care. Women could report more than one type of healthcare (or traditional) provider.
ANCAREDOC_ALL consists of a set of up to six separate variables, covering the most recent birth (ANCAREDOC_01) up to the sixth-most-recent birth (i.e., ANCAREDOC_02, ANCAREDOC_03, ANCAREDOC_04, ANCAREDOC_05, and ANCAREDOC_06) during the reference period prior to the survey. If ANCAREDOC_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 on prenatal care from a doctor was collected for only the most recent birth (ANCAREDOC_01) and, in some cases, the second-most-recent birth (ANCAREDOC_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 ANCAREDOC_06 would not be available for that survey in IPUMS-DHS.
