Congenital anomalies in Australia

This section looks at congenital anomalies by various maternal characteristics. In 2017, around 8,300 (3%) women giving birth had a baby with a congenital anomaly. Most (95%) of these women had a singleton birth; nearly three-quarters (73%) were aged 20–34 years and nearly three-quarters (71%) lived in Major cities. Around 6% of women giving birth to a baby with a congenital anomaly were First Nations women. First Nations women refers to women who have identified as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin.

Congenital anomaly rates were higher in babies born to:

• women having a multiple birth (104 per 1,000 women giving birth), compared with those having a singleton birth (30 per 1,000 women giving birth)
• women aged less than 20, and those aged 40 years and over (43, and 39 per 1,000 women giving birth, respectively, compared with 31 per 1,000 women giving birth aged 20–39 years)
• First Nations women (43 per 1,000 women giving birth), compared with non-Indigenous women (31 per 1,000 women giving birth).

Figure 4 shows the number, proportion and rate of women giving birth to a baby with a congenital anomaly, by various maternal characteristics. These include maternal age at birth, the First Nations status of women giving birth, parity (this indicates whether a woman has had a previous pregnancy), plurality (this indicates the number of births resulting from the pregnancy) and remoteness area of usual residence (where women live). The anomalies are grouped and can be filtered by body system (type of anomaly).

Figure 4. Number and rate of congenital anomalies, by maternal characteristics, 2017