Number of women over 40 giving birth rose almost a third over 10 years

The number of women aged 40 and over who gave birth rose by almost a third over a 10-year period, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

There were 4,700 births to women in this age group in 2020, up 29.4 per cent on the 3,631 births in 2010.

According to the CSO’s vital statistics, published on Friday, the number of births to women under the age of 20 has fallen significantly during that decade.

In 2020, there were 857 births to women under the age of 20, compared with 2,043 in 2010, a decrease of 58 per cent.

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The number of births to teenagers was 1.5 per cent of the total number of births in 2020, the lowest percentage of births to mothers under 20 years since 1958.

The average age of mothers is now 33.1 years, the CSO found.

In 2020, 34,850 (or 61 per cent) births occurred within marriage or civil partnership, with 21,962 (39 per cent) births occurring outside of these.

The highest percentage of births outside marriage or civil partnership occurred in Limerick City, accounting for 51 per cent of all births, while the area with the lowest percentage was in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown at 25 per cent.

Almost all births in 2020 — 99 per cent — occurred in hospitals. There were 314 domiciliary births, such as home births or births that take place in a location other than a hospital, in 2020, 54 more than the 260 recorded in 2019.

The highest number of births in maternity hospitals in 2020 was recorded in the Rotunda Hospital with 15 per cent (8,261) of all births taking place there.

This was followed by The Coombe Women’s & Infants Hospital (7,541) and the National Maternity Hospital, Holles St, (7,331), each having 13 per cent of all maternity hospital births, respectively.

The CSO also found the death rate increased slightly between 2020 and the previous year. The rate was 6.6 deaths per 1,000 total population, an increase of 0.3 from 2019.

Some 36 per cent of deaths occurred in general or orthopaedic hospitals, 20 per cent occurred in nursing homes, and home deaths accounted for 28 per cent of the total.

Of deaths in 2020, 30 per cent were due to neoplasms, or tumours; 27 per cent were as a result of diseases in the circulatory system and 10 per cent were due to diseases in the respiratory system.

For children aged five to 14, external causes of injury and poisoning were the main underlying cause of death (31 per cent), the CSO found.