In France, 5.3% of mothers are aged 40 or over at childbirth

French women are having children later and later. This is one of the multiple conclusions of a new study by the Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES).

“The Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics updates, for 2022, the indicators on perinatal health based on hospital data”, can we read in a press release. “This new dataset presents, for births occurring on French territory, the age of mothers at childbirth, the number of total and live births, the number and stillbirth rates according to the age of the mothers, ‘gestational age, prematurity rates, low birth weight rates and proportion of multiple births’, specify the authors of the survey.

The updated data comes from the database of the Information Systems Medicalization Program (PMSI-MCO). They are most often calculated based on mothers’ hospital stays. The distribution of children according to their weight is calculated based on the hospital stays of newborns.

Childbirth: more and more mothers aged 40 or over in France

Let’s move on to the survey results. In 2022, women hospitalized for childbirth or in the immediate aftermath gave birth to 727,143 children in France.

Furthermore, this same year, the number of births is changing again after having rebounded slightly in 2021: 677,200 women gave birth in a hospital establishment in mainland France and 38,300 in the overseas departments and regions (DROM), giving birth to respectively 688,220 and 38,923 children (excluding home births without immediate hospitalization), compared to respectively 702,363 and 39,978 in 2021.

In mainland France, 5.3% of mothers are aged 40 or over at childbirth (5% in 2021) and 1.5% are under 20 years old (1.4% in 2021). In the overseas territories, 7.8% of mothers giving birth are under 20 years old compared to 7.9% in 2021.

The hospital stillbirth rate decreases very slightly

The hospital stillbirth rate decreases very slightly compared to the previous two years, going from 8.9 per 1,000 children born in 2020 and 2021 to 8.8 per 1,000 children born in 2022. “The stillbirth rate returns to the levels observed in 2017 and 2018, after a one-off drop in 2019 (8.5). The spontaneous stillbirth rate is 5.4 per 1,000, compared to 3.4 due to medical termination of pregnancy“, complement public health experts.

In mainland France, the regional stillbirth rate varies between 7.6 for Occitanie or Normandy and 9.3 for Île-de-France. The risk of spontaneous stillbirth is greater at the extreme ages of reproductive life: it is almost twice as high for women aged 40 or over than for those aged 30-34 and is almost four times higher. in the case of a multiple pregnancy.

Finally, the prematurity rate is stabilizing in mainland France and remains at the same level as the two previous years. “In mainland France as in the overseas territories, prematurity affects more than one in two multiple pregnancies”, concludes the DREES at the end of its report.