Births in Scotland
Year ending 31 March 2024

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on pregnancy, childbirth and the early care of babies born in Scotland. The health of a pregnant woman and her baby are closely linked and are influenced by numerous factors during pregnancy, childbirth and the early period after birth.

Main points

In 2023/24:

• There were 44,383 maternities (a pregnancy ending in a live or stillbirth) recorded in Scotland compared to 44,714 in 2022/23. The known upward trend in maternal age continued. In around a quarter of maternities, women were aged 35 years or older.
• Although pregnant women from more deprived areas were more likely to be obese, maintaining a healthy weight in pregnancy is an issue across all areas of Scotland with 20% of women from the least deprived areas being obese at antenatal booking and 32% from the most deprived.

This image of a line chart shows the proportion of maternities which were recorded as obese (based on body mass index) at the antenatal booking appointment per year since 2010/11. This is shown for each level of deprivation, based on the Scottish Index Of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). Each SIMD area is represented by a different colour of line.

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Percentage of maternities recorded as obese, by deprivation area

• Over a quarter and nearly a tenth of maternities were affected by obesity and diabetes respectively.
• Preterm birth rates continued to increase with 6.8% of live singleton babies born prematurely (compared to 6.6% in 2022/23).
• Caesarean section births continued to increase with 41.8% of live singleton babies delivered this way (compared to 39.2% in 2022/23).
• Maternal ethnicity was known in 89% of maternities. Ethnic minority women accounted for 13% of maternities with a known ethnicity. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian provided care for approximately 70% of all ethnic minority maternities in Scotland. Ethnic minority women had a higher risk of diabetes, caesarean birth, and having a baby small for gestational age. Women of white ethnicity conversely had a higher risk of having a baby born large for gestational age.
• Almost a quarter of maternities in 2023/24 were to women living in the most deprived areas. Deprivation impacts the health of pregnant women and babies across Scotland with women from more deprived areas being more likely to be obese, have diabetes, to give birth prematurely and to babies small for their gestation compared to those from less deprived areas.

Background

The data presented are mainly obtained from the Scottish Morbidity Record 02 (SMR02). An SMR02 record is submitted by maternity hospitals to PHS whenever a woman is discharged from an episode of day case or inpatient maternity care. Comparison of SMR02 with the number of births registered by National Records of Scotland (NRS) confirms the high completeness of SMR02. This data source provides an additional richness of demographic and clinical information associated with the mother and baby which are not collected by NRS.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be November 2025.