Ten-year low in number of babies born to teenagers

THE number of babies born to teenagers fell by 35% in the last 10 years, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

A total of 2,019 babies were born to teenagers last year; 44 teenagers were under the age of 16.

In 2001, the year the Crisis Pregnancy Agency was established, 3,087 babies were born to teenagers.

The 10-year low has been welcomed by the Health Service Executive Crisis Pregnancy programme, formerly the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.

“This sustained decrease in the level of teenage births is a very welcome trend and is impressive compared to international standards,” said acting programme director Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe.

Dr O’Keeffe said 80,000 people visited B4udecide.ie last year, a sex education initiative developed by the programme in 2009.

The CSO statistics also show the number of births registered in Ireland fell again last year.

There were 73,724 births last year, a decrease of 554 compared to 2009 and the second consecutive annual decrease following a high of 75,065 births in 2008.

However, last year’s total is almost 30% higher than in 2001 when there were 57,882 births.

Ireland’s fertility rate in 2010 was 2.07 per 1,000, the same as that recorded in 2009 and a decrease of 1.4% from the rate of 2.1 per 1,000 recorded in 2008.

A rate of 2.1 is generally considered to be the level at which the population would replace itself in the long run and ignoring migration.

As was the case in 2009, more than two in five births last year were to first-time mothers, with just over one-third taking place outside marriage, a slight increase on 2009.

The highest percentage of births outside marriage occurred in Limerick city at 55%. Over half of all births outside marriage were to cohabiting parents and six out of 10 were to women aged over 30.

The average age of mothers for births registered last year was 31.5, 0.2 years more than the corresponding figure in 2009 and 1.2 years more than in 2001.

Births to mothers of Irish nationality accounted for three-quarters of births in 2010.

There were 27,122 deaths registered last year, a decrease of 1,776 on the 2009 figure or 0.4 per 1,000.

There were 279 infant deaths registered in 2010, an infant mortality rate of 3.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. There were 188 neonatal deaths — a mortality rate of 2.6 per 1,000 live births.

Almost three in every four deaths was through disease of the circulatory system (34%), cancer (29%), or diseases of the respiratory system (12%). Deaths due to accidents, suicides and other external causes accounted for a further 6%.

There were 486 suicides registered in 2010, a rate of 10.9 per 100,000 of the population and a decrease of almost 8% on the 527 suicides in 2009. Males represented 79% of all suicides.

There were 20,635 marriages registered in 2010, 906 less than in 2009.

The number of divorces granted by the High Court and Circuit Court was 3,093, a decrease of 248 on the 2009 figure.