During the visit at 1 month of age, questions related to aspects of birth were asked (gestational age, weight and size at birth, maternal and/or child complications, type of birth, and initiation of breast-feeding) and the answers were further compared with the information contained in the corresponding hospital discharge records.
Women who transferred between facilities during labour and birth were asked to rate their experience of the transfer, 8 (42 %) of respondents found the experience of transfer 'good' or 'very good', 6 (32 %) 'neutral' and 5 (26 %) 'bad'; none rated it 'very bad'.
In the second questionnaire (around 32 weeks of gestation age) the preferred place of birth was asked again.
Despite wording changes, the question was still perceived by some as " out of the blue" and " strange" (and the same participant who had queried the purpose of the ethnicity question, asked why country of birth was asked in addition to ethnicity).
In the case of multiple births, parents were asked to report on the behaviour of the first born twin or triplet.
If they indicated they had given birth, they were asked "How much did the baby weigh at birth?", "Was [baby's name] born before or after [his/her] due date?" and then "How many weeks or days early/late was [baby's name] born?" This was subtracted from 40 weeks to calculate gestational age.
Two months after birth, women were asked to provide details about self-rated length of labour and birth (in hours), their perceived length of labour (0-7, prolonged to rapid), pain intensity and pain experience (0-7, very positive to very negative).
Questions about birth weight were asked on the 1997 questionnaire (see below), and thus the present analyses are based on follow-up beginning in 1997.
At 2 months after birth, women were asked about frequency of soap use, non-exclusive breast feeding and the infant's vaccination status (checked against the vaccination record).
For each live birth, women were asked to recall how long they breastfed each child and to indicate the number of months of breastfeeding.
