Australia's mothers and babies 2000

Australia's Mothers and Babies 2000 provides information on births in Australia from perinatal data collections for each State and Territory. The report examines demographic and pregnancy factors of mothers and the characteristics and outcomes of their babies.

This report will be particularly useful to consumers of perinatal health care services, perinatal health service planners and those providing services or conducting research in reproductive and perinatal health.

Australia's Mothers and Babies 2000 was produced by the AIHW National Perinatal Statistics Unit based at the University of New South Wales.

Highlights

• In 2000, 257,238 babies born to 253,053 mothers were notified to perinatal data collections in the States and Territories. This represents a birth every 2 minutes and approximately 693 births per day in Australia in 2000.
• The average age of all mothers in 2000 was 29.0 years, and 27.3 years for those having their first baby, continuing the upward trend in recent years. There were 12,680 teenage mothers (5.0% of all mothers), of whom 3,964 were aged 17 years or younger.
• An increasing number of women appeared to be deferring childbearing. Approximately 1 in 10 (10.2%) mothers in 2000 were having their first baby at age 35 years or older.
• There were 8,682 Indigenous mothers representing 3.4% of all mothers in Australia in 2000. In excess of one-third (37.2%) of births in the Northern Territory were to Indigenous mothers. The proportion of births to Indigenous mothers in Western Australia and Queensland was 6.0% and 5.8%, respectively. The average age of Indigenous mothers was 24.7 years and there was a high proportion of teenage mothers (22.9%).
• The proportion of mothers who were born in a country other than Australia was 22.9% in 2000.
• Multiple pregnancies accounted for 1.6% of all confinements and included 3,974 twin pregnancies, 100 triplet pregnancies, and 3 higher order pregnancies.
• In 2000, preterm birth (less than 37 weeks gestation) occurred in 7.0% (17,947) of all confinements in Australia.
• In 2000, more than 1 in 5 (23.3%) births were by caesarean section. State and Territory caesarean section rates ranged from 20.8% to 25.6%. Caesarean rates were higher among older mothers, those having their first baby, and those who were private patients.
• Mothers continued to have relatively short postnatal stays in hospital in 2000. The proportion of mothers who stayed less than 2 days was 11.4%, while those staying between 2 and 4 days was 58.9% in the same period. Mothers without private health insurance had shorter postnatal stays than those with private health insurance.
• Low birthweight (less than 2,500 g) occurred in 17,477 (6.8%) babies in 2000. This was similar to previous years. The mean birthweight of babies of Indigenous mothers was 3,166 g, 198 g less than the mean birthweight for all births. The proportion of babies of Indigenous mother that were low birthweight was 13.6% compared to 6.6% of babies of non-Indigenous mothers.
• Fetal, neonatal and perinatal death rates were 7.0, 3.1 and 10.0 per 1,000 births, respectively, in 2000, based on State and Territory perinatal data collections. Rates remain low, having steadily declined for the past two decades.