Teenage pregnancies on rise, says Maternity Hospital study

ALMOST 30% of all babies born in Ireland are to unmarried, single women, a study of births at the National Maternity Hospital has found.

While the number of teenage mums is also increasing, according to the 30-year analyses of births, the age at which Irish women are having babies has also changed, with the majority of women now choosing to wait until their 30s to have children.

The study, entitled Thirty Year Trends in a Large Irish Obstetric Cohort, looked at birth trends at the hospital between 1968 and 1998. Up to 14% of all births in Ireland take place at Holles Street The study found that in 1968, just 2.5% of children were born to single women in Ireland. By 1998, it had risen to 28.2% nationally and 29% at Holles Street.