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EUROCAT Northern Netherlands

 General figures (birth years 1981-2021)
General figures (birth years 1981-2021)

Update January 2023

 

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
Total 666 339 3 504 669 843
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 %1) Stillbirths %2) Miscarriages
(<24 weeks)		 Terminated
pregnancies		 Total %3)
1981-2015 14 832 2.6 329 10.2 255 1259 16 675 2.9
2015 413 2.6 8 19.5 7 66 494 3.1
2017 436 2.9 6 16.2 12 83 537 3.5
2018 375 2.6 4 8.0 16 87 482 3.2
2019 432 2.9 5 8.9 14 94 545 3.6
2020 392 2.6 9 20.0 13 100 514 3.4
2021 309 1.9 4 7.7 14 91 418 2.6
Total 17 189 2.6 365 10.40 331 1780 19 665 2.9
1) Percentage is calculated as the number live birth children registered in Eurocat divided by the total number of live births in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe (table 1) in the respective period.
2) Percentage is calculated as the number stillborn children registered in Eurocat divided by the total number of still births in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe (table 1) in the respective period.
3) Percentage is calculated as the number all children registered in Eurocat divided by the total number of births in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe (table 1) in the respective period.