Reproductive Health Indicators

Renfrew County and District Community Health Status Report

Issue #14, June 2007

 

Summary

 

This report presents reproductive health indicators for babies born to residents of Renfrew County and District. It illustrates trends over a 16-year period from 1991 to 2006.

 

The data in this report comes from two sources: the Provincial Health Planning Database (PHPDB) and the Niday Perinatal Database. The Niday Database contains more recent records (2004 – 2006), and information about maternal smoking and breastfeeding that is not available from the PHPDB.

 

Reproductive health statistics in RC&D for the years 1991 to 2006 indicate that:

 

• The number of births/year has been declining since 1994, and as of 2006 is well under 1000 births/year.

 

• Crude birth rates have been declining. Since 2002, they have been under 10 births/1,000 people in the population. A similar decline has occurred in Ontario and Canada.

 

• General fertility rates have been declining. RC&D rates have been very similar to Ontario’s and since 2002 have been close to 40 births/1,000 women age 15 – 49.

 

• Teen fertility rates have declined substantially since 1994 (from 30 to 12 births/1,000 females age 15 – 19). They were higher than in Ontario as a whole for most years between 1991 and 2003.

 

• Teen pregnancy rates in RC&D (1996 to 2001) were close to the provincial average, but teen abortion rates were lower. This would account for teen fertility rates in RC&D being higher than in Ontario as a whole.

 

• Low birth weight rates have generally been below Ontario rates. The average low birth weight rate for single births for the 16-year period was 3.9%, slightly lower than in Ontario as a whole (4.6%). Low birth weight rates for multiples varied considerably, and averaged out to under 50% over the 16-year period. This compares favourably to Ontario’s low birth weight rate for multiples of 50% or slightly higher.

 

• Preterm birth rates have been close to those for Ontario as a whole (1999 to 2003). The average preterm birth rate for single births for the eight years between 1999 and 2006 was just over 6%. Multiple preterm birth rates in RC&D varied considerably but averaged out to 59% for the period 1999 to 2006.

 

• Between one third and one-half of teen moms smoked after the 20^th week of their pregnancy, while less than one fifth of older moms did so.

 

• Over 80% of new moms indicated that they planned to breastfeed their babies. Intent to breastfeed has risen slightly since 1999-2001. However, only 60 to 65% practiced exclusive breastfeeding while in the hospital and at the last feeding before discharge (2005 and 2006).