Release: Characteristics of Birth 1, England and Wales, 2009

Presents data on birth registrations in England and Wales by birth characteristics. This package contains summary statistics on stillbirths including figures by age of parents and quarter of occurrence. Tables also provide birthweight data for live and stillbirths by mother's area of usual residence and maternities, live births, and stillbirths in hospitals by area of occurrence. See Characteristics of Birth 2 for statistics on multiple births and place of birth.

For information on data quality, legislation and procedures relating to birth statistics, please see Births Metadata and Births Summary Quality Report.

There is also a frequently asked questions on births and fertility document.

In addition, there is an interactive mapping tool which enables trends in fertility to be analysed at the local level.

There is a lookup table to show how the current birth tables relate to former Series FM1 tables.

The Vital Statistics: Population and Health Reference Tables provide quarterly and annual births data for the United Kingdom and its constituent countries.

For data for other UK countries please see the latest birth statistics for Northern Ireland and the latest birth statistics for Scotland.

We welcome feedback on the content, format and relevance of this release. The Health and Life Events (HLED) User Engagement Strategy outlines the divisional approach to user engagement.