Natality

Concepts and definitions
A.
Live birth (para. 57.)
B.
Foetal death (para. 57.)
 
C.
Children ever born (para. 2.180)
D.

Date of birth of last child born alive (para. 2.188)

E.

Age, date or duration of first marriage (para. 2.192)

F.

Age of mother at birth of first child ever born (para. 2.193)

A. Live birth (para. 57)

Live birth is the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy, which after such separation, breathes or shows any other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; each product of such a birth is considered liveborn (all live-born infants should be registered and counted as such, irrespective of gestational age or whether alive or dead at the time of registration, and if they die at any time following birth they should also be registered and counted as deaths).

B. Foetal death (para. 57)

Foetal death [deadborn foetus] is death prior to the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy; the death is indicated by the fact that after such separation the foetus does not breath or show any other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles (note that this definition broadly includes all terminations of pregnancy other than live births, as defined above).

 

C. Children ever born (para. 2.180)

2.180. Information on number of children born alive (lifetime fertility) should
include all children born alive (that is to say, excluding foetal deaths) during the lifetime
of the woman concerned up to the census date. The number recorded should
include all live-born children, whether born in or out of marriage, whether born in
the present or a prior marriage, or in a de facto union, or whether living or dead at the
time of the census.

D. Date of birth of last child born alive (para. 2.188)

2.188. Information on date of birth (day, month and year) of the last child born
alive and on the sex of the child is used for estimating current fertility. This item can
be useful as a means of deriving both national and subnational fertility estimates. In
countries lacking adequate data from civil registration, sample surveys have become a
major source of information for estimating national fertility levels, but surveys usually
do not permit the derivation of reliable estimates at subnational levels.

E. Age, date or duration of first marriage (para. 2.192)

2.192. Date of first marriage comprises the day, month and year when the first
marriage took place. In countries where date of first marriage is difficult to obtain, it is
advisable to collect information on age at marriage or on how many years ago the marriage
took place (duration of marriage). Include not only contractual first marriages
and de facto unions but also customary marriages and religious marriages. For women
who are widowed, separated or divorced at the time of the census, “date of/age at/
number of years since dissolution of first marriage” should be secured. Information on
dissolution of first marriage (if pertinent) provides data necessary to calculate “duration
of first marriage” as a derived topic at the processing stage. In countries in which
duration of marriage is reported more reliably than age, tabulations of children ever
born by duration of marriage yield better fertility estimates than those based on data
on children born alive classified by age of the woman.56 Data on duration of marriage
can be obtained by subtracting the age at marriage from the current age, or directly
from the number of years elapsed since the marriage took place.

F. Age of mother at birth of first child ever born (para. 2.193)

2.193. Age of mother at the time of the birth of her first live-born child is used
for the indirect estimation of fertility based on first births and to provide information
on onset of childbearing and also for the indirect estimation of child mortality. If the
topic is included in the census, information should be obtained for each woman who
has had at least one child born alive.


United Nations Statistics Division - Demographic and Social Statistics