One in ten mothers in Australia having their first baby were
aged 35 years or more, according to a report released today by the
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
The AIHW's Australia's Mothers and Babies 2000 report
shows that the average age of all mothers is 29.0 years, up from
27.9 years in 1991, and the average age of first-time mothers is
also increasing (27.3 years, up from 25.8 years in 1991).
Dr Elizabeth Sullivan, Head of the AIHW National Perinatal
Statistics Unit at the University of New South Wales, said that
'the ACT and Victoria have clearly the greatest proportions of
mothers aged 35 and over, with the Northern Territory and Tasmania
having clearly the lowest'.
While maternal age is rising, the number of teenage births has
hit an all-time low. The number of teenage mothers as a proportion
of all women in the population is less than one-third of what it
was 30 years ago.
There were approximately 12,700 teenage mothers or 1 in every 20
mothers who gave birth in Australia in 2000.
Indigenous mothers were more likely to have babies at a younger
age, with nearly 1 in 4 Indigenous mothers being teenagers.
Dr Sullivan said that maternal age is 'an important risk factor
for perinatal outcome, with adverse outcomes more likely to occur
in younger and older mothers'.
Australia's Mothers and Babies 2000 presents data
collected from 253,053 confinements of mothers notified to State
and Territory perinatal data collections in that year. Other
findings include:
- Mothers continued to have relatively short postnatal stays in
hospitals in 2000, with 11.4% of mothers staying for less than 2
days, and 58.9%of mothers staying between 2 and 4 days.
- The fetal death rate of twins (19.3 per 1,000 births) was much
higher than for singleton births (6.5 per 1,000). The fetal death
rate for higher multiple births was 67.7 per 1,000 births.
- The proportion of Indigenous mothers was 37.2% in the Northern
Territory compared with the national average of 3.4%.
- State and Territory caesarean rates ranged from 20.8% in the
Northern Territory to 25.6% in Queensland.
- The proportion of mothers who were born in a country other than
Australia was nearly 23% in 2000.
- Although month of birth was distributed very evenly throughout
the year, more babies were born in Australia in October than in
other months, with March the next most common. Fewer babies were
born in December and February, the latter mainly because of
February having fewer days than other months.
30 May 2003
Further information: Dr Elizabeth Sullivan,
NPSU, tel. (02) 9382 1014
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, AIHW, tel. 02 6244 1032
Availability: Check the AIHW
Publications Catalogue for details.