OK, what if I have no choice in a mail-merge but to use auto-numbering?

I use a report template in which I use mail-merge to input certain data that are different from project to project. After using mail-merge with my template doc, I cannot edit the section heading numbers; they all default to 1.0 (and obviously the subsections default to 1.1, 1.2, etc.). I can't change the numbers in the merged document to the proper section number, even by trying to force section 2 numbering to 2.0; Word forces the number back to 1. This problem just cropped up! (I have edited the template and associated input database to incorporate some new data entries, and after I did so is when the problem arose.)

Any ideas?