Between 1991 and 2021 there has been a clear trend of mothers having children later in life in the United Kingdom, with the average age of mothers in the increasing from 27.7 in 1991 to 30.9 by 2021.

In 2022 the average age of mothers giving birth to their first child in England and Wales was 29.2 years of age, followed by 31.5 years for the second child, 32.6 for the third child, and 33.6 for the fourth child.

Annual live births in England and Wales by age of mother and father, type of registration, median interval between births, number of previous live-born children and National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC).

Live births in the UK by area of usual residence of mother. The tables contain summary data for local authorities and local health boards (within Wales) including figures by age of mother.

In England and Wales in 2022, the conception rate among women aged between 30 and 34 years was approximately 115.7 per 1,000 women, meaning this age group had the highest rate of conceptions that year. Slightly lower was the rate of conceptions among 25 to 29-year-olds at 113.7 conceptions per 1,000 women, while there were 80.4 conceptions per 1,000 women aged between 20 and 24 years of age. Trends in teenage conceptions The rate of teenage pregnancies has declined sharply in the last ten years. In 2008, the conception rate among teenagers was approximately 60 per 1,000; by 2021, this rate has dropped to 26.1 as displayed above. While the number of teenage pregnancies has dropped in England and Wales, the share of pregnant teenagers getting abortions has increased. The share of teenage conceptions ending in abortion increased from 40.1 percent in 2004 to 51.6 percent in 2021. Additionally, teenagers are the most likely age group in England and Wales to go through with an abortion after a pregnancy. Birth rate trends in the UK In 2021, the birth rate in the UK was 10.4 births per 1,000 population, which, except for 2020, was the lowest birth rate in the country since the start of the provided time period in 1938. The average age at which a mother gives birth in the UK has also increased alongside the drop in birth rate. In 2000, the average age of a mother giving birth in the UK was 28.5; by 2021, it was 30.9 years old. Furthermore, there were just 41 live births per woman aged 22 in 2022, compared with 71 live births for 22-year-olds in 2002 and 86 live births for women aged 22 in 1992.

Live births and stillbirths annual summary statistics, by sex, age of mother, whether within marriage or civil partnership, percentage of non-UK-born mothers, birth rates and births by month and mothers' area of usual residence.

This is a publication on maternity activity in English NHS hospitals. This report examines data relating to delivery and birth episodes in 2023-24, and the booking appointments for these deliveries. This annual publication covers the financial year ending March 2024. Data is included from both the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data warehouse and the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). HES contains records of all admissions, appointments and attendances for patients admitted to NHS hospitals in England. The HES data used in this publication are called 'delivery episodes'. The MSDS collects records of each stage of the maternity service care pathway in NHS-funded maternity services, and includes information not recorded in HES. The MSDS is a maturing, national-level dataset. In April 2019, the MSDS transitioned to a new version of the dataset. This version, MSDS v2.0, is an update that introduced a new structure and content - including clinical terminology, in order to meet current clinical practice and incorporate new requirements. It is designed to meet requirements that resulted from the National Maternity Review, which led to the publication of the Better Births report in February 2016. This is the fifth publication of data from MSDS v2.0 and data from 2019-20 onwards is not directly comparable to data from previous years. This publication shows the number of HES delivery episodes during the period, with a number of breakdowns including by method of onset of labour, delivery method and place of delivery. It also shows the number of MSDS deliveries recorded during the period, with a breakdown for the mother's smoking status at the booking appointment by age group. It also provides counts of live born term babies with breakdowns for the general condition of newborns (via Apgar scores), skin-to-skin contact and baby's first feed type - all immediately after birth. There is also data available in a separate file on breastfeeding at 6 to 8 weeks. For the first time information on 'Smoking at Time of Delivery' has been presented using annual data from the MSDS. This includes national data broken down by maternal age, ethnicity and deprivation. From 2025/2026, MSDS will become the official source of 'Smoking at Time of Delivery' information and will replace the historic 'Smoking at Time of Delivery' data which is to become retired. We are currently undergoing dual collection and reporting on a quarterly basis for 2024/25 to help users compare information from the two sources. We are working with data submitters to help reconcile any discrepancies at a local level before any close down activities begin. A link to the dual reporting in the SATOD publication series can be found in the links below. Information on how all measures are constructed can be found in the HES Metadata and MSDS Metadata files provided below. In this publication we have also included an interactive Power BI dashboard to enable users to explore key NHS Maternity Statistics measures. The purpose of this publication is to inform and support strategic and policy-led processes for the benefit of patient care. This report will also be of interest to researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in NHS hospital activity in England. Any feedback on this publication or dashboard can be provided to enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk, under the subject “NHS Maternity Statistics”.

This is a publication on maternity activity in English NHS hospitals. This report examines data relating to delivery and birth episodes in 2022-23, and the booking appointments for these deliveries. This annual publication covers the financial year ending March 2023. Data is included from both the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data warehouse and the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). HES contains records of all admissions, appointments and attendances for patients admitted to NHS hospitals in England. The HES data used in this publication are called 'delivery episodes'. The MSDS collects records of each stage of the maternity service care pathway in NHS-funded maternity services, and includes information not recorded in HES. The MSDS is a maturing, national-level dataset. In April 2019 the MSDS transitioned to a new version of the dataset. This version, MSDS v2.0, is an update that introduced a new structure and content - including clinical terminology, in order to meet current clinical practice and incorporate new requirements. It is designed to meet requirements that resulted from the National Maternity Review, which led to the publication of the Better Births report in February 2016. This is the fourth publication of data from MSDS v2.0 and data from 2019-20 onwards is not directly comparable to data from previous years. This publication shows the number of HES delivery episodes during the period, with a number of breakdowns including by method of onset of labour, delivery method and place of delivery. It also shows the number of MSDS deliveries recorded during the period, with breakdowns including the baby's first feed type, birthweight, place of birth, and breastfeeding activity; and the mothers' ethnicity and age at booking. There is also data available in a separate file on breastfeeding at 6 to 8 weeks. The count of Total Babies includes both live and still births, and previous changes to how Total Babies and Total Deliveries were calculated means that comparisons between 2019-20 MSDS data and later years should be made with care. Information on how all measures are constructed can be found in the HES Metadata and MSDS Metadata files provided below. In this publication we have also included an interactive Power BI dashboard to enable users to explore key NHS Maternity Statistics measures. The purpose of this publication is to inform and support strategic and policy-led processes for the benefit of patient care. This report will also be of interest to researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in NHS hospital activity in England. Any feedback on this publication or dashboard can be provided to enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk, under the subject “NHS Maternity Statistics”.

Introduction to fertility estimates

Fertility refers to the number of live births within an individual or group, influenced by a combination of biological, social, cultural, and economic factors.

There are several ways to describe fertility rates, but two of the most commonly used are Age-Specific Fertility Rates (ASFR) and Total Fertility Rates (TFR).

Age-specific fertility rates (ASFR) measure the number of births per woman within specific age groups. For example, in England, the peak childbearing age is currently 32, with an ASFR of 0.107, meaning 107 babies were born for each 1,000 women aged 32.

Total fertility rate (TFR) is a commonly used measure of overall fertility calculated as the sum of all age-specific fertility rates across all reproductive age groups. It represents the average number of children that a woman would have if she were to experience current age-specific fertility rates over the course of her life. For 2023, we estimate the TFR in Inner London to have been 1.16 compared to 1.54 in Outer London, and 1.41 for England as whole.

About these estimates

The estimates published here were produced by the GLA for use in analysis and as inputs to population projections. These data include annual estimates for all local authority districts and regions in England and Wales from 1993 onward of:

• Total Fertility Rates
• Age-Specific Fertility Rates by single year of age (15 to 49)

The GLA is making these estimates and the code used to create them as a resource for analysts and researchers working to understand local birth trends. We welcome feedback and suggestions from the community for how these data could be improved or made more useful.

The code used to produce these estimates is available on GitHub. All the requirements and information necessary to recreate the estimates can be found in the README file. This repository also includes some examples of code for plotting age-specific and total fertility rates across local authorities and periods of interest.

The Office for National Statistics also publishes fertility rates for local authority districts and higher geographies. Age-specific fertility rates are published by five-year age groups and for 2013 onward. These data are available to download from Nomis.

Note: There will be differences between the rates published by the GLA and those available from ONS. These are because the GLA:

• models rates for individual ages 15 to 19 and 40 to 49 from aggregate data
• applies smoothing to age specific rates
• uses population denominators for 2002 to 2020 that differ from the official mid-year estimates used by ONS.

Data and methods

The data used to calculate fertility rate estimates are:

• ONS calendar year births by age of mother from 1993
• ONS mid-year population estimates from 1991 - 2000
• GLA estimates components of change modelled backseries from 2000

Raw age-specific fertility rates are calculated by dividing the number of births in a calendar year by the population of women the same age at the mid-point of that year.

Smoothed rates, covering individual ages from 15 to 49 are produced by fitting a series of parametric curves to the raw fertility rates.

Age-specific fertility rates are summed across all ages to obtain total fertility rates.

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This statistical release makes available the most recent monthly data on NHS-funded maternity services in England, using data submitted to the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). This is the latest report from the newest version of the data set, MSDS.v.2, which has been in place since April 2019. The new data set was a significant change which added support for key policy initiatives such as continuity of carer, as well as increased flexibility through the introduction of new clinical coding. This was a major change, so data quality and coverage has initially reduced from the levels seen in earlier publications. We expect the completeness to improve over time as occurred with the previous version of the MSDS, and are looking at ways of supporting improvements. This month three new measures have been included in this publication for the first time: the proportion of women placed under the care of a Family Nurse Partnership, the proportion of women recorded as not smoking during pregnancy as measured at booking and 36 weeks gestation, and the proportion of women with cephalic presentation who went on to have a spontaneous birth. Two measures were new in the publication last month: the proportion of women booking onto maternity services who have a valid London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy score recorded, and the proportion of women who meet the criteria to be recommended aspirin during pregnancy. Most of these new measures are included in the new 'Pregnancy' grouping. This new data can be found in the Measures file available for download and further information on these new measures can be found in the accompanying Metadata file. The data derived from SNOMED codes is being used in some measures such as those for smoking at booking and birth weight, and others will follow in later publications. SNOMED data is also included in some of the published Clinical Quality Improvement Metrics (CQIMs), where rules have been applied to ensure measure rates are calculated only where data quality is high enough. System suppliers are at different stages of developing their new solution and delivering that to trusts. In some cases, this has limited the aspects of data that could be submitted to NHS Digital. To help Trusts understand to what extent they met the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) Data Quality Criteria for Safety Action 2, we previously produced data files during the scheme months which contained information for data providers showing their performance against all MSDS-derived Safety Action 2 criteria. We are reviewing how similar data quality information may be more regularly included in publications in the future. These statistics are classified as experimental and should be used with caution. Experimental statistics are new official statistics undergoing evaluation. More information about experimental statistics can be found on the UK Statistics Authority website. Please note that the percentages presented in this report are based on rounded figures and therefore may not total to 100%.

There were almost 695,000 live births recorded in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with almost 682,000 in the previous year. Between 1887 and 2021, the year with the highest number of live births was 1920, when there were approximately 1.13 million births, while the year with the fewest births was 1977, when there were approximately 657,000 births. Birth rate falls to a historic low in 2020 At 10.2 births per 1,000 people, the birth rate of the United Kingdom in 2020 was at a historic low. After witnessing a twenty-first century high of 12.9 in 2010, the birth rate gradually declined before a sharp decrease was recorded between 2012 and 2013. Although there was a slight uptick in the birth rate in 2021, when there were 10.4 births per 1,000 people, the total fertility rate reached a low of 1.53 births per woman in the same year. As well as falling birth and fertility rates, the average age of mothers has been increasing. In 1991, the average age of mothers at childbirth was 27.7 years, compared with 30.9 years in 2021. UK population reaches 68 million In 2023, the overall population of the United Kingdom reached almost 68.3 million people. Of the four countries that comprise the UK, England has by far the highest population, at 57.7 million, compared with almost 5.5 million in Scotland, 3.2 million in Wales, and 1.9 million in Northern Ireland. These countries are far less densely populated than England, especially when compared to London, which had approximately 5,630 people per square kilometer, compared with just 70 in Scotland. After London, North West England was the second-most densely populated area of the UK, which includes the large metropolitan areas of the cities of Manchester, and Liverpool

The CBGS is a prospective, observational pregnancy and birth cohort with detailed assessments and sample collections in infancy and continuing in childhood. Women were recruited during early pregnancy from April 2001 to March 2009. The women attended several study visits throughout pregnancy, and then repeatedly with their infants until the age of 2 years. Over 2,200 pregnant women were recruited at approximately 12-weeks gestation from a maternity hospital in Cambridge, England. The average age of mothers was 33.5 years. A total of 1,658 infants were recruited into the study, including 22 sets of twins.

Maternity Services Monthly Statistics January 2022, experimental statistics This is a report on NHS-funded maternity services in England for January 2022, using data submitted to the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). This is the latest report from the new version of the data set, MSDSv2. The new data set is a significant change which adds support for key policy initiatives such as personalised care plans and continuity of carer, as well as increased flexibility through the introduction of new clinical coding. This is a major change, so data quality and coverage has reduced from the levels seen in previous publications. The data derived from SNOMED codes is still being developed. We have included data on smoking at booking and birth weight and others such as BMI and alcohol consumption will follow in later publications. SNOMED data is also included in some of the published Clinical Quality Improvement Metrics (CQIMs) where rules have been applied to ensure rates are calculated only where data quality is high enough. System suppliers are at different stages of developing their new solution and delivering that to trusts. In some cases this has limited the aspects of data that could be submitted to NHS Digital. These statistics are classified as experimental and should be used with caution. Experimental statistics are new official statistics undergoing evaluation. More information about experimental statistics can be found on the UK Statistics Authority website. Updated versions of these files were added to this publication on 22 June 2022 to include a correction to the Ethnicity DQ outputs, as 32 providers had previously been incorrectly showing in the files as having met this criteria when they had not.

The Generation XXI cohort aims to identify characteristics of pregnancy and childhood that are related to development and health status in the subsequent stages of life. The study has been following over 8,600 participants born in public maternity hospitals of the Metropolitan Area of Porto, Portugal since 2005. Starting from an initial assessment at birth, the participants were then assessed at 6, 15 and 24 months, and at 4, 7, 10 and 13 years of age. At baseline, mothers had an average age of 29.7 years and 11 years of education. At age 4 years, most of the children (around 90%) had none or one sibling living with them, almost 90% lived with both parents and more than 90% were with a nanny or in a kindergarten.

Annual UK and constituent country figures for births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships and civil partnership dissolutions.

The LoTiS cohort study recruited women pregnant with twins aged 20 to 40 years from multiple antenatal clinics at the two major public hospitals in Chongqing, China, namely the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University and the Chongqing Health Centre for Women and Children, between January 2016 and September 2018. The women were followed up in early, middle, and late pregnancy, then again at delivery, and their offspring were followed up at birth, 6 weeks, then 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months of age. The average age of mothers at first follow-up was 29.48 years, 41.7% pregnancies were monochorionic, and the remaining were dichorionic.

Each year, there are audits to assess maternal & foetal outcomes across the UK. In 2016-18, 217 women died during or up to six weeks after pregnancy, from causes associated with their pregnancy, among 2,235,159 women giving birth in the UK. 9.7 women per 100k died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after childbirth or the end of pregnancy. There was an increase in the overall maternal death rate in the UK between 2013-15 & 2016-18. Assessors judged that 29% of women who died had good care. However, improvements in care which may have made a difference to the outcome were identified for 51% of women who died. Birmingham has a higher than average maternal & foetal death rate. This dataset includes detailed information about the reasons pregnant women seek acute care, & their care pathways & outcomes. PIONEER geography: The West Midlands (WM) has a population of 5.9m & includes a diverse ethnic, socio-economic mix. There is a higher than average % of minority ethnic groups. WM has the youngest population in the UK with a higher than average birth rate. There are particularly high rates of physical inactivity, obesity, smoking & diabetes. 51.2% of babies born in Birmingham have at least one parent born outside of the UK, this compares with 34.7% for England. Each day >100k people are treated in hospital, see their GP or are cared for by the NHS. EHR: University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England, providing direct acute services & specialist care across four hospital sites, with 2.2 million patient episodes per year, 2750 beds & 100 ITU beds. UHB runs a fully electronic healthcare record (EHR) (PICS; Birmingham Systems), a shared primary & secondary care record (Your Care Connected) & a patient portal “My Health”. Scope: Pregnant or post-partum women from 2015 onwards who attended A&E in Queen Elizabeth hospital. Longitudinal & individually linked, so that the preceding & subsequent health journey can be mapped & healthcare utilisation prior to & after admission understood. The dataset includes highly granular patient demographics (including gestation & postpartum period), co-morbidities taken from ICD-10 & SNOMED-CT codes. Serial, structured data pertaining to process of care (admissions, wards, practitioner changes & discharge outcomes), presenting complaints, physiology readings (temperature, blood pressure, NEWS2, SEWS, AVPU), referrals, all prescribed & administered treatments & all outcomes. Available supplementary data: More extensive data including granular serial physiology, bloods, conditions, interventions, treatments. Ambulance, 111, 999 data, synthetic data. Available supplementary support: Analytics, Model build, validation & refinement; A.I.; Data partner support for ETL (extract, transform & load) process, Clinical expertise, Patient & end-user access, Purchaser access, Regulatory requirements, Data-driven trials, “fast screen” services.

BackgroundSeveral studies reported an association between Caesarean section (CS) birth and childhood obesity. However, there are several limitations in the current literature. These include an inability to distinguish between planned and emergency CS, small study sample sizes and not adjusting for pre-pregnancy body-mass-index (BMI). We examined the association between CS delivery and childhood obesity using the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study (MCS).MethodsMother-infant pairs were recruited into the MCS. Use of sampling weights ensured the sample was representative of the population. The exposure was categorised as normal vaginal delivery (VD) [reference], assisted VD, planned CS and emergency CS. Childhood obesity prevalence, at age three, five, seven, eleven and fourteen years was calculated using the International Obesity Taskforce criteria. Mixed-effects linear regression models were fitted with associations adjusted for several potential confounders like maternal age, pre-pregnancy BMI, education and infant macrosomia. Linear regression models were fitted evaluating body fat percentage (BF%), at age seven and fourteen years.ResultsOf the 18,116 infants, 3872 (21.4%) were delivered by CS; 9.2% by planned CS. Obesity prevalence was 5.4%, 5.7%, 6.5%, 7.1% and 7.6% at age three, five, seven, eleven and fourteen years respectively. The mixed-effects linear regression model showed no association between planned (adjusted mean difference = 0.00; [95% confidence interval (CI) -0.10; 0.10], p-value = 0.97) or emergency CS (adjusted mean difference = 0.08; [95% CI -0.01; 0.17], p-value = 0.09) and child BMI. At age seven years, there was no association between planned CS and BF% (adjusted mean difference = 0.13; [95% CI -0.23; 0.49]); there was no association at age fourteen years.ConclusionsInfants born by planned CS did not have a significantly higher BMI or BF% compared to those born by normal VD. This may suggest that the association, described in the literature, could be due to the indications/reasons for CS birth or residual confounding.