Almost 2,500 teenagers gave birth in Ireland last year, 65 of whom were aged 15 or under, a new report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has shown.
According to the CSO’s Yearly Summary 2007, the total number of births in 2007 was 70,620, an increase of over 6,000 on 2006’s figure and the highest number recorded since 1982.
A total of 2,464 teenagers had babies last year, 65 of whom were aged 15 or under and 148 of whom were aged 16. For three of these 16-year-olds, this was their second child.
Overall, almost 30,000 births (42%) were to first time mothers, while almost 40,000 births were to women in their 30s. In fact, last year saw an 8% increase in fertility in women aged 30-34 and an 11% increase in women aged 35-39.
Almost one in three births were outside marriage and just over 50% of all births outside marriage were to cohabiting parents.
The figures also show that there were 28,050 deaths in 2007. Of these, 35% were due to diseases of the circulatory system, including heart disease and stroke, 28% were due to cancer and 13% were due to diseases of the respiratory system.
There were 460 suicides last year, over four in five of which involved males.
There were 221 deaths of infants under the age of one. This equates to 3.1 deaths for every 1,000 births.
“The infant death rate has halved in the last decade, as in 1998, there were 6.2 infant deaths for every 1,000 births,” the CSO said.
