pregnancy record

Fertility histories¹ or reproductive histories¹ are accounts obtained for individual women of the important events in their reproductive lives, such as marriages, pregnancies, births, infant deaths, etc., and their dates. Fertility histories are often obtained retrospectively from surveys. Family forms¹ are used in historical demography (102-1), where they are established for a married couple and its children by family reconstitution² on the basis of vital records (211-3). A woman’s pregnancy history³ or pregnancy record³ contains detailed information about her pregnancies including the date when each began and ended, and the outcome of the pregnancy. Such detailed records on the timing of fertility have been used for various purposes. For example, they can provide information on natural fertility⁴, i.e., fertility in the absence of family limitation (624-4). They are also used to estimate fecundability⁵, the probability of conceiving per menstrual cycle (622-2). A distinction is made between natural fecundability⁶, in the absence of contraception, and residual fecundability⁷ in the opposite instance. The term effective fecundability⁸ designates a fecundability that is reckoned in terms of conceptions that result in live births only. The conception rate⁹ during the period of exposure to risk often estimated using the Pearl index^10★ (613-1) is used to measure the effectiveness of contraception during periods of contraceptive use.

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