Multiple births post 1983 in England and Wales

You asked

Under the FOI Act please would you supply me with the number of higher order multiple births post-1983, by year, in England and Wales. As in the book, please can these figures also be broken down into the numbers of twins, triplets, quads, quins, etc., their genders, the age of the mother and whether they were legitimate or illegitimate. It would also be helpful, as in the book, if the figure for the total number of maternities for each year could also be included so that I can calculate the percentage of maternities that resulted in multiple births.

Under the Act please also clarify that the statistics refer to maternal confinements/deliveries and not the individual infants, i.e. Triplets = 2 would be 2 sets i.e. 6 individuals, not 2 individuals.

If it is possible it would be helpful to have a break-down of death statistics for the period 1938-date for multiple births as well, if they can be identified. And if identifiable, that is both the infants themselves and maternal mortality following a multiple birth, for statistically comparative purposes.

We said

Thank you for your query regarding birth and death data.

Birth characteristics statistics for 2014 and 2015 (latest data year) are available here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthcharacteristicsinenglandandwales

Table 11 includes the number of maternities with multiple births by age of mother, 1940 to 2015. Table 12, 13 and 14 contain more detailed information on multiple births that occurred during the data year, including multiplicity.

Prior to the 2014 data year these figures were published in Characteristics of Birth 2, 2009 to 2013 are available here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/characteristicsofbirth2englandandwalesreferencetable

Prior to the 2009 data year birth statistics for 1998 to 2008 can be found here:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160108035551/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/birth-statistics--england-and-wales--series-fm1-/index.html

See chapter 6 for statistics on multiple births.

Details on whether a birth is part of a multiple birth are collected at the time a birth is registered but not during death registration. For infants, death registrations are linked back to the birth registration allowing us to produce the number of infant deaths that were part of a multiple births. Figures for 2007 to 2014 (latest data year) are available in birth cohort tables for infant deaths here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/birthcohorttablesforinfantdeaths

See Table 2.

Prior to 2007 infant death statistics from 1999 to 2006 can be found here:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160108045516/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/mortality-statistics--childhood--infant-and-perinatal--england-and-wales--series-dh3-/index.html

See Table 25.

We do not produce specific maternal mortality statistics, MBRRACE-UK programme of work is responsible for the national Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths (CEMD) within the United Kingdom: https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk.

Other special extracts and tabulations of birth data for England and Wales are available (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs, where appropriate). You do not need to make a Freedom of Information request and can contact the team directly at: vsob@ons.gov.uk. Access to microdata and disclosive data, that is, data which have the potential to identify an individual record, requires the approval of the ONS Microdata Release Procedure (MRP) before the data can be provided. Details on the ONS Approved Researcher Scheme, and how to submit project applications can be found here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/statistics/requestingstatistics/approvedresearcherscheme