The National Obstetrics Information System said today that a progressive increase in the number of multiple births continued last year.

In a report published today, it said that there were 4,036 births last year, down from 4,180 in the previous year. Of these, 4,018 (99.6%) were live births while 18 were stillbirths. In 2009 there were 4,180 births including 4,152 live (99.3%) births.

There were 255 deliveries to teenage mothers last year but the average maternal age was 29 years. 9.2% of mothers last year were non-Maltese.

Gender distribution of infants born bore no surprises, with slightly more males (51.2%) than females (48.8%).

71.3% of deliveries occurred to mothers reported as married, 24.6% occurred to women reported as single mothers (never married) while 4.1% were widowed, separated or divorced.

The highest number of deliveries by maternal age group remained within the 25-29 year group.

Deliveries to teenage women totalled 255 in 2010, a slight decrease from the 276 and 277 seen in 2008 and 2009 respectively, though still higher than the figures for 1999-2007.

In 2010, gestational diabetes was recorded in 159 women, with an additional 7 women reported to have had Type I Diabetes before the pregnancy and 2 with Type II Diabetes. 198 mothers were recorded as having gestational hypertension.

32% of deliveries were Caesarean

Of the 3952 deliveries, 1252 were carried out by Caesarean section, 31.7% of the total. The majority of of babies weighed between 2.5 and 3.5 kg at birth. The majority of births were at Term, i.e. between 37 and 41 weeks' gestation, constituting 92.3% of births; 7.5% were born premature, which included 1% of babies (41 in total) born at less than 32 weeks.

Breast feeding remained the most popular choice at discharge.

Multiple births

148 of the babies born last year were twins, and 16 were triplets and quadruplets. In 2009, 124 births were twins and nine were triplets or quadruplets.

Of the total 164 multiple infants born last year, 2 were stillbirths and a further 1 died in the early neonatal period.

The fetal mortality rate for fetuses 500g and over stood at 4.0 per thousand total births for 2010, while the neonatal death rate was 4.5/1000 live births. 16 early and 2 late neonatal deaths were recorded. Of these, 9 were preterm; 11 weighed less than 2.5 kg at birth.

In 2008, an apparent rise in fetal mortality was thought to be partially attributable to improved data collection systems and reporting of small fetuses of 22-24 weeks gestation.