To main content To main navigation

EUROCAT Northern Netherlands

 General figures (birth years 1981-2022)
General figures (birth years 1981-2022)
Update: October 2024

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 ‘catchment area’ of Eurocat, representing approximately 10% of all births in the Netherlands. The data were 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)
1981-2015 574 645 3 223 577 868
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
Total 681 170 3 552 684 722
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)
1981-2015 14 143 2.5 255 1 263 15 661 2.7
2016 422 2.7 7 66 495 3.2
2017 448 2.9 12 83 543 3.6
2018 374 2.5 16 85 475 3.2
2019 449 3.0 14 93 556 3.7
2020 414 2.8 13 98 525 2.5
2021 358 2.2 15 93 466 2.9
2022 287 1.9 9 72 368 2.5
Total 16 895 2.5 341 1 853 19 089 2.8
1) Percentage is calculated as the number live and still births children registered in Eurocat divided by the total number of live and still births 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 still births in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe (table 1) in the respective period.