In Germany, more than 787,500 children were born last year. This means that the number of babies has risen compared to the previous year: In 2017, around 2,600 fewer children were born, the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday.
Striking is therefore the increase in mothers who are at the birth of their child 40 years or older. In 2018, this was the case in 42,800 deliveries - more than five percent of all births. With 88 babies per 1000 women, the number of births in this age group is still relatively low, write the statisticians. Compared to 1990, the number has almost quadrupled.
There are various reasons for the trend towards future motherhood: this means that more women work and push the desire to have children behind. However, medical progress also makes it possible to become a mother later, as it used to be, for example through hormone therapies or artificial inseminations.
Biologically, the ideal age for pregnancy is between 20 and 30 years. Those who eat healthily, move regularly and abstain from nicotine, but also have more than 35 good chances of getting pregnant easily, it says on the homepage of the professional association of gynecologists.
Baby blessing in Hamburg and Berlin
In 2018 there were also regional differences in the number of newborns:
- The most babies per inhabitant were born 2018 in the city states Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen. In Hamburg, 12 children per 1000 inhabitants were born, in Berlin and Bremen there were 11 newborns per 1000 inhabitants.
- In contrast, very few babies were born in the new Länder (except for Saxony) and Saarland. There, the number was only eight babies per 1000 inhabitants.
- All other federal states were in the midfield with nine or ten babies per 1000 inhabitants.
The differences mainly reflect different age structures of the population. If these are excluded, women in the new federal states still have a little more children than women in the old federal states:
- While the combined birth rate in the new federal states was 1.6 without Berlin,
- in the former federal territory it was 1.58 without Berlin.
This number indicates how many children a woman would get in the course of her life if her birth behavior were the same as that of all women between the ages of 15 and 49 in the year under consideration.