The birth rate in the Northern NSW Local Health District has continued its downward slide of the past five years, with 2557 babies born in 2015, a reduction of 2.7 per cent since 2011, three times the statewide average.
The state at large recorded 0.9 per cent fewer births than in 2011.
The statistics were revealed in the NSW Mothers and Babies 2015 report.
They also show the region having the state’s second highest percentage of young mothers (after the Far West), with 12-19 year olds accounting for more than one-in-twenty deliveries.
The eighteenth annual snapshot of birthing practices and outcomes in NSW shows that the percentage of teenage mothers in NSW fell from 3.2 per cent in 2011 to 2.5 per cent in 2015, less than half the Northern NSW figure.
In our region, 92.5 per cent of births were in hospitals, with 44.6 per cent of those in a birth centre. The area had the state’s highest number of planned home births (1.4 per cent), and the state’s equal-highest number of babies born before arrival at hospital (1.3 per cent, the same as in Southern NSW).
Mothers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent accounted for 9.4 per cent of births, the state’s fourth highest total.
Elective caesareans accounted for 12.9 per cent of births, and emergency caesareans, 11.1 per cent.
“Among privately insured mothers the rate of normal vaginal birth fell from 44.9% in 2011 to 43.6% in 2015 and the caesarean section rate increased from 40.4% to 43.0%,” the report noted.
“Among publicly insured mothers the rate of normal vaginal birth fell from 63.3% to 62.3% and the caesarean section rate rose from 26.5% to 27.3%.”
The proportion of mothers in Northern NSW who reported any smoking during pregnancy was 11.1 per cent, the statewide average in 2011, which has now dropped to 8.9 per cent.
The perinatal mortality rate in Northern NSW 2015 was 8.1 per 1,000 births, compared to the state average of 8.2 per cent, with the average for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander babies standing at 9.6 per cent.
