Definition
For women who gave birth in the 3 years before the survey's calendar period, PRECABSEDUR (V433) reports the duration in months of postpartum abstinence after the birth of the last child born in the 3 years preceding the start of the calendar. The survey's calendar period is typically 5 years, meaning PRECABSEDUR usually refers to births between 6 and 8 years before the survey.
The maximum period of postpartum abstinence allowed during the creation of PRECABSEDUR was the interval between the date of birth of the child and the date of the interview. Cases exceeding this duration were left with the original response but are coded with a flag in PRECABSFLAG (V435), and were set to "Inconsistent" (code "97") in PRECABSMO (V434).