Childbirth

(asked on 1st March 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of births that take place (a) in obstetric maternity units, (b) in midwife-led units that are (i) freestanding and (ii) alongside an obstetric unit, (c) at home, and (d) in any other setting.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 8th March 2018

In October 2017 NHS Digital, for the first time, collected data relating to the setting in which babies are born. The following table shows the count of babies by place of birth for the Month of October.

Count of babies by Place of Birth type, Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS), October 2017

Place of Birth

Count of babies

Proportion of babies

Midwifery unit, co-located with consultant obstetric unit

3,210

7.9%

Midwifery unit, co-located with other non-obstetric consultant unit

98

0.2%

Midwifery unit, stand alone

864

2.1%

Midwifery unit, type not known

1,339

3.3%

At a domestic address

724

1.8%

GMP ward

1

0.0%

Consultant ward

15,151

37.3%

Consultant/GMP/midwife ward

18,344

45.2%

Private hospital

1

0.0%

Other hospital or institution

16

0.0%

Ward/unit without delivery facilities

147

0.4%

None of the above

702

1.7%

Total where known (All Submitters - 124 from 132 expected submitters)

40,597

Not known

621

Missing Value / Value outside reporting parameters

5,165

Source: MSDS, NHS Digital.


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