EUROCAT Northern Netherlands

 General figures (birth years 1981-2024)
General figures (birth years 1981-2024)
Update: June 2026

Number of childbirths in Northern Netherlands

Table 1 presents the numbers of live births and stillbirths after 23 weeks of gestation in the provinces of Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe. This is the area Eurocat covers, representing approximately 10% of all births in the Netherlands. The data was obtained from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and are used as denominators for the calculation of prevalences.

Table 1. Total number of children born in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe by type of birth

Year of birth Live births Stillbirths Total 1)
1981-2014 559,276 3,186 562,462
2015 15,369 37 15,406
2016 15,631 41 15,672
2017 15,250 37 15,287
2018 14,704 50 14,754
2019 15,109 56 15,165
2020 14,932 45 14,977
2021 16,068 52 16,120
2022 14,831 48 14,879
2023 14,582 42 14,624
2024 14,537 37 14,574
Total 710,289 3,631 713,920
1) Source: Statistics Netherlands (CBS). CBS has no data concerning miscarriages and terminated pregnancies.

Number of births with a congenital anomaly

Table 2 shows the number of children registered at Eurocat NNL, by year and type of birth. The decline in numbers in the most recent years is largely caused by incomplete registration of all cases for these years. This can have a number of reasons:

  1. It can take more than a year before a child is registered with Eurocat. Hospital administrations need time to generate overviews for Eurocat
  2. Sometimes, the diagnosis of a congenital anomaly is not made until later in life
  3. The procedure of obtaining permission from the parents may take a long time.

Table 2. Number and proportion of children with a congenital anomaly (Eurocat) by type of birth

Year of birth Live births & Still births %1) Miscarriages
(<24 weeks)		 Terminated
pregnancies		 Total %2)
1981-2014 12,394 2.2 238 1,168 13,800 2.5
2015 451 2.9 9 71 531 3.4
2016 432 2.8 7 66 505 3.2
2017 469 3.1 12 80 561 3.7
2018 397 2.7 14 84 495 3.4
2019 463 3.1 10 91 567 3.7
2020 468 3.1 12 100 582 3.9
2021 403 2.5 13 99 516 3.2
2022 393 2.6 11 78 485 3.3
2023 333 2.3 13 101 454 3.1
2024 275 1.9 13 98 405 2.8
Total 16,478 2.4 352 2,036 18,901 2.7
1) Percentage is calculated as the number live and stillbirth children registered in Eurocat divided by the total number of live and stillbirths in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe (table 1) in the respective period
2) Percentage is calculated as the number all children registered in Eurocat divided by the total number of live and stillbirths in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe (table 1) in the respective period.