THE NUMBER of teenage mothers giving birth has fallen almost 10 per cent in the first three months of this year, new figures reveal.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) published its Vital Statistics for the First Quarter 2010 report yesterday.
This report gives details on births, deaths and marriages which are registered in the State for every three-month period.
The figures showed a decline in births to teenage girls of 9.6 per cent to 534 from June to March when compared to the first three months of 2009.
Births to teenage mothers represent 2.8 per cent of all births compared to 3.1 per cent in the first three months of 2009.
Fourteen girls aged 15 and under gave birth. There were 42 births to 16-year-olds. Some 94 girls aged 17 had babies, three of whom had given birth to one child previously. A total of 157 18-year-olds and 227 19-year-olds had babies.
Overall there was a decline in births in the first quarter of this year, continuing a falling birth rate from 2009.
There were 252 fewer babies born in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2009.
Some 18,535 births were registered during the quarter, giving an annual birth rate of 16.6 per 1,000 of the population. Some 500 more boys than girls were born.
The birth rate fell by 1 per cent in 2009, after the births had reached a century high in 2008.
As the number of teenage births declined, the average age of a woman giving birth continued to increase. The average age of mothers for births registered in the first quarter was 31.4 years, more than two months older than in the first quarter last year and 1.3 years older than the same period of 2001.
According to the figures, the average age of women having their first child also increased by some two months on the same period last year to 29.2.
Some 42 per cent of births (7,759) were to first-time mothers and there were 6,024 births to second-time mothers.
The greatest number of births during the quarter was in the 30-34 age category, with some 6,303 babies born.
A total of 4,227 babies were born to women aged 35-39. Women in the 40-44 age category gave birth to 849 children. Some 194 of those were first-time mothers. In the 45 and over age category, there were 39 births.
Fingal recorded the highest birth rate of 22.2 per 1,000 population, while Galway city recorded the lowest at 12.7.
More than a third of births, some 6,309, were registered outside marriage. Of these almost a fifth were to unmarried parents with the same address.
The highest percentage of births outside marriage occurred in Limerick city, at 62 per cent, while the lowest number of such births was in Cork county and Galway county, at 24 per cent.
The number of marriages registered during the quarter was 3,381, equivalent to an annual marriage rate of 3 per 1,000 population, 0.1 below the corresponding quarter last year.
The report showed the natural increase in the population was 9.8 per 1,000 – 0.4 above the first quarter in 2009.
The number of deaths in the first three months of this year fell by more than 10 per cent on the same period. A total of 7,563 deaths were registered, some 10.2 per cent lower than in the corresponding quarter of 2009. Some 3,770 males and 3,793 females died between January and March.
There were 104 deaths by suicide, including 83 males and 21 females. This compared to a figure of 106 for the first quarter last year.
Accidents accounted for 207 deaths, of which 128 were men and 79 women.
The CSO urged caution in directly comparing the mortality statistics with those of previous quarters because of changes in the way deaths were categorised including deaths where there had not been an inquest.