How to Use Maternity Statistics
You can't choose where to have your baby simply by looking at maternity statistics, but they can give you an indication of the type of maternity care you may get there. This website gives maternity statistics for most NHS hospitals in the UK. Before you look at them, find out below what to look for!
- It is useful to know firstly how big the maternity unit is - how many women each year have their babies at the hospital. A small unit (less than 500 a year) is likely to be more personal than a large unit where over 3,000 babies a year are born. Small maternity units often are run by midwives and tend to have lower intervention rates than larger units. This may be because women tend to labour more naturally in these units and some small units may only allow women to give birth there if the birth is likely to be straightforward. It may also be because some women are transferred out of the unit during labour due to complications and are not included in the statistics of the small maternity unit.
- Some hospitals have a higher Caesarean rate than others. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that no hospital should have a Caesarean rate higher than 10-15%20,, although many hospitals in the UK have Caesarean rates over 20%. If a local hospital does have a high Caesarean rate, it is worth asking why this is. Some hospitals (for example, large teaching hospitals) have a high proportion of women with complications which can increase the Caesarean rate. Caesarean operations are usually not available at midwifery-led units and GP units. Women needing this intervention are transferred to a consultant unit.
- Instrumental delivery rates are the percentage of women giving birth in the hospital who need the help of forceps or ventouse to give birth. The use of these, especially forceps, can make the recovery period after birth longer, and so it is useful to see how often these are used. These interventions are not usually available in midwifery-led units, and there may be low rates at GP units.
- Induction rates can indicate what policies the hospital has for starting labour artificially. A lower rate may mean that the consultants at this hospital are more relaxed about labour starting naturally. These rates can also be increased in hospitals having a high proportion of "high risk" women (eg large teaching hospitals).
- One statistic which is not generally available is the proportion of women who labour at the hospital without any interventions from medical staff - the "normal birth rate". For many hospitals this may only be 15-30% of women7, but will usually be much higher in a midwifery-led unit or GP units. If you want to have a natural birth in hospital it may be worth asking them for this information. Using 1998 data from the Department of Health, BirthChoiceUK has calculated the normal birth rate for maternity units in England. For more information see Normal Birth Rates.
The maternity statistics on this website are the latest that have been collated nationally.
- For England21. (Where hospitals have failed to submit hospital statistics, no data are given. Some of these data may be inaccurate. Where a figure has been queried, it has been flagged.)
- For Scotland22.
- For Wales23 . (There are no detailed figures on induction and mode of delivery for Wales.)
- For Northern Ireland24. (Statistics for N. Ireland are not collated nationally and the majority have not been made available for the website.)
Individual hospitals should be able to provide you with their latest maternity statistics on request. If you have recent statistics from your hospital, we may be able to display them on our site if you send them to us, stating the source of the information. Click the "Contact Us" button on the menu.
Where maternity units have provided extra information you can follow the 
, 
or 
signs in the statistics tables.
