Institute for Health and Welfare (THL): Medical Birth Register
The register contains data on mothers who have given birth and children born in Finland. The data are gathered from hospitals and complemented by data obtained from the Cause of Death Register of Statistics Finland and by data from the Population Register Centre. The register contains data from 1987 onwards.
Keywords
birth rate
delivery
reproductive health
population changes
fertility
Classifications
Geographical classification
Municipality, sub-region, region, area for the regional state administrative agency, major region, Mainland Finland/Åland, hospital district, university hospital special responsibility area, whole country
Age classification
Ages 15-49 (women)
Data content
The indicator gives the annual number of deliveries per thousand women of fertile age (15-49). Population data refer to mid population.
Interpretation
Delivery rate gives the annual number of deliveries per thousand women of fertile age (15-49). It differs from the three commonly used fertility indicators:
Birth rate is the annual number of live births per thousand. General fertility rate is the annual number of live births per thousand women of fertile age (15-49). Total fertility rate is the calculated number of liveborn infants that would be born to thousand women if they were to live to the end of their child-bearing years and bear children at each age in accordance with the age-specific fertility rates of the year concerned.
Restrictions
Individual level information in the Medical Birth Register is confidential. For the sake of privacy protection, information with less than 5 cases per municipality is not published.
Additional information
http://www.thl.fi/en/statistics/parturients
Eija Vuori (firstname.lastname@thl.fi)
Legislation
Act on National Personal Records Kept under the Health Care System (556/1989); Sections 1 and 3 of the relevant Decree (774/1989)
Recommendations
Remarks
Delivery rate is useful as a variable when the number of deliveries is to be related to that of all ended pregnancies (deliveries and abortions). See the indicator Induced abortions among women aged 15-49 per 1000 women of same age (id=695)
