Birthweight of babies born to Indigenous mothers

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Release Date: 05 Aug 2014
Author: AIHW
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Birthweight of babies born to Indigenous mothers provides an overview of the birthweight of babies born to Indigenous mothers, including recent trends and information on factors associated with birthweight variation. According to data from the National Perinatal Data Collection, 3.9% of all births in 2011 were to Indigenous mothers. Excluding multiple births, 11.2% of liveborn singleton babies born to Indigenous mothers were of low birthweight—2.5 times the rate for non-Indigenous mothers (4.6%). Between 2000 and 2011, there was a statistically significant decline in the low birthweight rate among Indigenous mothers, and the gap in birthweight between babies born to Indigenous and non-Indigenous mothers declined significantly over this period.

ISBN: 978-1-74249-606-1
Cat. no: IHW 138
Pages: 51

Findings from this report:

50% of all Indigenous mothers who gave birth in 2011 reported smoking during pregnancy
11,729 Indigenous mothers gave birth to 11,895 babies in 2011, representing 4% of all babies born in that year
12.5% of babies of Indigenous mothers were pre-term compared with 7.5% of babies born to non-Indigenous mothers
Indigenous mothers were twice as likely to have babies of low birthweight than non-Indigenous mothers

Preliminary material
- Title and verso page
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Symbols
- Summary
  - Almost 4% of all babies born in 2011 were to Indigenous mothers
  - Newborns of Indigenous mothers were twice as likely to be of low birthweight
  - Gap in birthweight has narrowed over a decade
  - Decline in rate of pre-term births to Indigenous mothers and smoking during pregnancy
  - Indigenous babies
Body section
- 1 Introduction
  - 1.1 Categorising birthweight
  - 1.2 Purpose and structure of this paper
  - 1.3 Data source
- 2 Births
  - 2.1 Total births
  - 2.2 Indigenous mothers who gave birth
- 3 Birthweight
  - 3.1 Birthweight in 2011
  - 3.2 Trends in birthweight
- 4 Factors associated with birthweight variation
  - 4.1 Pre-term births
  - 4.2 Maternal smoking
  - 4.3 Antenatal care
  - 4.4 Other factors
End matter
- Appendix A: Data source and technical notes
- Appendix B: Comparison of NPDC and ABS data on live births
- Appendix C: Additional tables
- References

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