Table 1 Description and measurement of independent variables

Respondent age

Current age of the mother and re-coded in to two categories with values of “0” for < 20, “1” for 20–24, “2” for 25–29, “3” for 30–36 and “4” for ≥35 years.

Religion

Religion of the mother that is re-coded in to three categories, “0” for Muslim, “1” for Orthodox and “2” for other religious groups (combining protestant, catholic, traditional, and the other religious categories).

Wealth status

It is the household wealth status and in the EDHS data it was created using principal components analysis and coded as “poorest”, “poorer”, “middle”, “richer”, and “richest”. For this study, we recoded it in to three categories as “poor” (includes the poorest and the poorer categories), “middle”, and “rich” (includes the richer and the richest categories)

Parity

It is the total number of children a women had and re-coded in to three categories with a value of “0” for 1–3, “1” for 4–6, and “2” for > 6 children.

Birth order

Recoded in to four categories with a value of “0” for first birth order and “1” for 2-3rd order, “2” for 4-5th, and “3” for 6th and above birth order.

Toilet facility

The variable type of toilet facility is recoded as “0” for pit latrine (flush to piped sewer system, flush to septic tank, flush to pit latrine, flush, don’t know where, ventilated improved pit latrine, pit latrine with slab, and pit latrine without slab/open pit), and “1” for no pit toilet latrine (no facility/bush/field, composting toilet, and others)

Educational status

This is the minimum educational level the mother achieved and coded in to two groups with a value of “0” for no education and “1” for primary education and above.

Sex of household

The variable sex of household head was corded as male and female in the dataset and we used without change.

Water source

Recoded in to two categories with value of “0” for “pipe (piped into dwelling, piped to yard/plot, piped to neighbor, and public tap/standpipe) and” “1” for other source of water.

Preceding birth interval

The variable preceding birth interval is recoded as “0” for preceding birth interval of ≤2 years, “1” for preceding birth interval of 2–3 years, and “2” for preceding birth interval of > 3 years.

Place of delivery

The variable place of delivery was recoded as “0” for home delivery and “1” for delivery in the health facility.

Sex of child

The sex of the child recoded as “1” for male and “2” for female in the EDHS and used without recoding.

Birth type

The variable birth type was recoded in to two categories as “0” for single birth and “1” for multiple birth.

ANC visit

The variable ANC visit was recoded in to two categories, “0” for woman who had no any ANC visit during their pregnancy and “1” for woman who had at least one ANC visit during their pregnancy.

Place residence

The variable place of residence was corded as rural and urban in the dataset and used without change for this study.

Region

The variable region was coded in to 11 categories in the dataset and we used the three (Afar, Somali, and Beni shangul).