Demographic and Health Surveys Methodology - Measure DHS

Decisions on AlternativesAn alternative formulation of exclusive breastfeeding would be to consider only children who have neverreceived anything but breast milk. The required information was collected only in the second phase of theDHS, when respondents were asked about the age of introduction of liquids and foods. These questionswere dropped when they were found to produce older ages at introduction of foods than that estimatedfrom current status.Changes over TimeSurveys based on the DHS phase IV core questionnaire only ask about the feeding status of the youngestliving child who lives with the mother. Other children are assumed not to be breastfeeding.Statistics: Median and Mean Durations of Any Breastfeeding, Exclusive Breastfeeding andPredominant BreastfeedingDefinitionA. Coverage:1. Population base.2. All births in the time period 0 to 35 months before interview.B. Time period: Breastfeeding and other liquids and foods given in the 24 hours preceding thesurvey.CalculationA. Utilizes the numerators and denominators calculated for the proportions any breastfeeding,exclusive breastfeeding and predominant breastfeeding by time since birth, as given above.Numerators and denominators are each smoothed by a three-group moving average. For example,the value of the numerators and denominators for births that occurred 4–5 months before theinterview is the average of groups 2–3, 4–5, and 6–7 months. Groups < 2 months and 34–35 months are not smoothed. Smoothed proportions are calculated by dividing the smoothednumerator values by the smoothed denominator values of each two-month group.B. Median1. Beginning with the lowest time-since-birth group, each group is examined to see whether theproportion breastfeeding, exclusively breastfeeding, or predominantly breastfeeding is lessthan 0.5. Value of median is determined by linear interpolation of percentage of first groupbelow 0.5 and previous group percentage using the following formula:median = m i-1 + (p i-1 – 0.5)/(p i-1 – p i ) x (w i),where p i is the proportion breastfeeding, exclusively breastfeeding, or predominantlybreastfeeding for the first group where the proportion is below 0.5, p i-1 is the proportionbreastfeeding, exclusively breastfeeding, or predominantly breastfeeding for the precedinggroup, m i-1 is the midpoint value for the preceding group, and w i is the time width of thegroup taken as the difference between the midpoint value of the current group and thepreceding group.Guide to DHS Statistics 124 Updated September 2006