Description
CALSBIRTH_TOTAL reports how many stillbirths women had during the entire length of the calendar period.
The related variable CALSBIRTH indicates whether a stillbirth occurred during a specific woman-month.
In CALSBIRTH_TOTAL, a value of "0" indicates some other type of pregnancy termination (miscarriage or abortion) occurred, but no stillbirth. A value of 1 or more but less than 99 indicates how many times women had one stillbirth only during the calendar period, how many times they had two stillbirths, and so on.
If a woman experienced one stillbirth (for example, in the last month of her calendar record), the monthly values recorded for her in CALSBIRTH are "1," "0," "0", and repeated values of "0" back to the start of the calendar period. However, her single instance of a stillbirth with a code of "1" in one month only in CALSBIRTH gets copied over for each woman-month for that woman, as in "1," "1," and "1" throughout the reproductive calendar period, in CALSBIRTH_TOTAL.
In CALSBIRTH_TOTAL, a value of "99" indicates that no pregnancy terminations of any type occurred during the full length of the reproductive calendar (i.e., all calendar months) for women of childbearing age. For most samples, the number of cases coded "99" (no pregnancy terminations of any kind) in CALSBIRTH_TOTAL is the same as the number of cases coded "0" (no pregnancy terminations) in CALTERM_TOTAL (Total number of pregnancy terminations during the calendar period). For the explanation for exceptions, see the county-specific comparability text.
