Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers and babies

Some topics in this report may exclude data for selected states and territories for reasons including:

• changes in definitions or data collection methods in a state and territory that mean the data item is not comparable over time (trend analyses only)
• data are not currently collected by a state and territory, or are not collected in a format that is comparable with the specifications for the NPDC, NPMDC or the NMMDC
• data are not currently supplied by a state and territory for the NPDC, NPMDC or NMMDC. Data items that are not part of the Perinatal NMDS are not mandatory for provision to the NPDC, and there are currently no Perinatal NMDS items in the NPMDC.

NPDC, NPMDC and NMMDC exclusions are noted in footnotes under data visualisations, and are also available in the accompanying data tables. These exclusions apply to both the numerator and denominator for rate calculations, and the data presented are not representative of the jurisdictions excluded.

Detailed information on completeness for all NPDC data items used in the web report and data visualisations is available in the National Perinatal Data Collection data availability resource interactive data visualisation tool. Note that this includes jurisdictions that provided data only.

Quality of data for reporting Indigenous status

Indigenous status is a measure of whether a person identifies as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. Indigenous status of the mother has been a mandatory data item for the Perinatal NMDS since its inception in 1997. Indigenous status of the baby was also added to the NMDS for collection for the first time in the 2012–13 reference year (from 1 July 2012).

This item, when used in conjunction with the mother’s Indigenous status, is a better baseline measure of health for all Indigenous children. However, the outcomes of babies of Indigenous mothers remain a key data resource for assessing antenatal care in pregnancy and other interventions before or during pregnancy, aimed at improving the health of mothers and babies.

Unless otherwise stated, data for babies are based on the Indigenous status of the mother.

Table 1 shows the relationship between Indigenous status of the mother and Indigenous status of the baby in 2020. Most babies (97%) had the same Indigenous status as their mother while only a small proportion had a different Indigenous status recorded (2.0%). However, of the 18,228 babies reported as Indigenous in the NPDC in 2020 (6.2% of all babies), one-quarter (27%) were born to non-Indigenous mothers.