Publication date:
6 October 2015
The Maternity Tables 2013 present annual health statistics about women giving birth, their pregnancy and childbirth experience, and the characteristics of the live-born babies in New Zealand. The focus is on births in 2013.
A summary of the key findings is presented below. The excel file includes a further description on births in 2013 as well as selected graphs.
Key findings about births in 2013
Overview
- In 2013, 59,227 women gave birth and 59,620 babies were live-born.
- The birth rate was 65.6 per 1000 females of reproductive age.
- The number of births and birth rate increased from 2004 to 2008 and has since been on a decreasing trend.
Women giving birth
- Women giving birth in 2013 were predominantly in their late 20s and early 30s.
- Almost half of women giving birth were European.
- At least half of young, Māori and Pacific women giving birth resided in the most deprived areas.
- Birth rates varied across the country.
- 2 of every 5 women giving birth were first time mothers.
- 45% of women giving birth had a healthy weight at first registration with a Lead Maternity Carer (LMC).
- 13% of women who gave birth reported smoking at two weeks after birth.
- The vast majority of women received primary maternity care from a community LMC.
Labour and birth
- Two-thirds of women had a spontaneous vaginal birth and a quarter had a caesarean section.
- A quarter of women giving birth in 2013 had an induction, their labour augmented or an epidural.
- Most women gave birth at a secondary or tertiary maternity facility.
Babies
- There was little change in average birthweight of babies.
- Median gestation at birth was 39 weeks.
- Most babies were exclusively or fully breastfed.
Publishing information
- Publication date
- Citation
Ministry of Health. 2015. Maternity Tables 2013. Wellington: Ministry of Health.
- Copyright status
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Owned by the Ministry of Health and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.