Gestational age is the duration of pregnancy in completed weeks. The gestational age of a baby has important implications for their health, with poorer outcomes generally reported for those born early. Gestational age is reported in 3 categories: pre-term (less than 37 weeks’ gestation), term (37 to 41 weeks) and post-term (42 weeks and over).
Over time, the proportion of babies born between 20 and 36 weeks remained steady (8.3% in both 2010 and 2020), while the proportion born between 37 and 39 weeks increased (for example, babies born at 38 weeks increased from 19% in 2010 to 23% in 2020) and the proportion born from 40 weeks onwards decreased (for example, babies born at 40 weeks decreased from 26% in 2010 to 20% in 2020).
The data visualisation below presents data on the grouped gestational age of pre-term and post-term babies and the individual completed weeks for term babies, for 2010 and 2020.