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EUROCAT Northern Netherlands General figures
General figures

birth years 1981-2020


Update March 2022

 

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)
1981-2014 559276 3186 562462
2015 15369 37 15406
2016 15631 41 15672
2017 15250 37 15287
2018 14704 50 14754
2019 15109 56 15165
2020 14932 45 14977
Total 650271 3452 653723

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, by year and type of birth. Since 2010 there is a change in procedure. From this year onward, limited data on diagnosis and birth outcome of children whose parents do not respond to requests to participate were also registered. 
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 %1) Stillbirths %2) Miscarriages
(<24 weeks)		 Terminated
pregnancies		 Total %3)
1981-2014 14387 2.6 322 10.2 245 1186 16140 2.9
2015 429 2.8 7 18.9 10 73 519 3.4
2016 401 2.6 8 19.5 7 66 482 3.1
2017 421 2.8 6 16.2 12 83 522 3.4
2018 358 2.4 4 8.0 16 87 465 3.1
2019 380 2.5 5 8.9 12 90 487 3.2
2020 288 1.9 7 15.6 13 96 404 2.7
Total 16664 2.6 359 10.40 315 1681 19019 2.9

1) Percentage of the total number of live births of the respective period
2) Percentage of the total number of stillbirths of the respective period
3) Percentage of the total number of live births, stillbirths, miscarriages and terminated pregnancies of the respective period