Highlights
- In the period from 1991 to 1993, there were 21,750 births to 21,539 Indigenous mothers recorded in the State and Territory perinatal collections, accounting for 2.8% of all mothers and babies in Australia in those years.
- Based on births recorded in the State and Territory perinatal collections, in 1991 the total fertility rate was 2.7 for Indigenous women and 1.8 for non-Indigenous women. Indigenous women began childbearing at younger ages, had higher birth rates in their teenage years and early twenties, and tended to have more children than non-Indigenous women.
- The regions with the largest numbers of Indigenous mothers in the three-year period were Queensland (6,698), Western Australia (4,320), New South Wales (4,269) and the Northern Territory (3,673).
- Most Indigenous mothers (97.7%) gave birth in hospitals; they were more likely to have their babies in smaller hospitals than non-Indigenous mothers.
- The average age of Indigenous mothers was 23.7 years, less than the average of 28.2 years among non-Indigenous mothers. One in four (25.2%) Indigenous mothers was a teenager, five times higher than for non-Indigenous mothers (5.0%).
- Although generally experiencing less intervention at birth than non-Indigenous women, Indigenous mothers in public accommodation in hospital had caesarean rates ranging from 1 in 7 (13.6%) confinements at 15-19 years to 1 in 5 (20.2%) at 30-34 years and about 1 in 4 at 35-39 years (26.2%) and at 40-44 years (28.2%), consistently higher than for non-Indigenous mothers.
- Indigenous mothers had longer antenatal stays in hospital than non-Indigenous mothers. Their average postnatal stay of 4.7 days was slightly shorter than the average of 5.1 days for all other mothers, but the period of postnatal hospitalisation of Indigenous mothers was considerably longer in the Northern Territory (average of 6.0 days) than elsewhere in Australia.
- The mean birthweight of Indigenous infants was 3,145g, 216g less than the mean of 3,361g for all other births. There were marked regional differences in the mean birthweight of Indigenous infants, ranging from 3,028g in the Northern Territory and 3,084g in South Australia to 3,310g in Victoria. The proportion of low birthweight infants among babies of Indigenous mothers (12.6%) was more than twice as high as for babies of non-Indigenous mothers (6.1%).
- The fetal death rate among births to Indigenous mothers (15.9 per 1,000 births) was more than double that for non-Indigenous births (6.7 per 1,000) and was higher in South Australia (21.8 per 1,000), the Northern Territory (19.2 per 1,000) and New South Wales (16.9 per 1,000) than elsewhere. Neonatal death rates of Indigenous infants were also high in those States with available data.
- The completeness and quality of information on Indigenous births would be improved by: linking paternal information on Indigenous status recorded on birth registrations, and on perinatal death registrations, to the perinatal data collections; validation studies of the accuracy of recording Indigenous status of mothers on perinatal data forms; revising data items in the perinatal collections on maternal medical conditions and various complications; surveys of antenatal care within Indigenous communities; and facilitating the communication of relevant information on reproductive and perinatal health to Indigenous local communities.