EUROCAT Northern Netherlands

 General figures (birth years 1981-2023)
General figures (birth years 1981-2023)
Update: October 2025

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 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)
1981-2013 543 250 3 146 546 396
2014 16 026 40 16 066
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
Total 695 752 3 592 699 346
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)
1981-2013 13 514 2.5 227 1 094 14 835 2.7
2014 487 3.0 11 74 572 3.6
2015 448 2.9 9 71 529 3.4
2016 430 2.7 7 66 504 3.2
2017 462 3.0 12 80 554 3.6
2018 390 2.6 14 84 490 3.3
2019 458 3.0 10 91 559 3.7
2020 451 3.0 12 100 566 3.8
2021 390 2.4 13 99 503 3.1
2022 364 2.4 11 78 459 3.1
2023 300 2.1 10 97 423 2.9
Total 17 694 2.5 336 1 934 19 994 2.9
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.