Definition
FEDANY24H (M39A_x) indicates whether the woman gave her child any solid, semi-solid, or soft foods during the previous day, either at night or during the daytime.
The related variable FEDANY24HX_ALL (M39_x) reports the number of times the woman gave her child any solid, semi-solid, or soft foods in the previous 24 hours.
FEDANY24H_ALL consists of a set of six separate variables, covering the most recent birth (FEDANY24H_01) up to the sixth-most-recent birth (i.e., FEDANY24H_02, FEDANY24H_03, FEDANY24H_04, FEDANY24H_05, and FEDANY24H_06) during the reference period prior to the survey. If FEDANY24H_ALL is included in a data extract, all these separate variables are included in a researcher's data file.
For most surveys including this question, information for this variable was collected on the youngest surviving child under age 2. If the respondent's last-born child had died but the second-to-last child was still alive, FEDANY24H_02 would indicate whether the respondent's second-to-last child was given solid, semi-solid, or soft foods only if the last-born child had died. Data were hypothetically collected on up to the sixth-most-recent birth, but if no women in the survey had 6 births and the 5 most recent had died, FEDANY24H_06 would not be available for that survey in IPUMS-DHS.
Surveys that differ from this pattern are noted below.