This article is from page 6 of the 2012-07-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
CLARE women are waiting longer than ever before to give birth to their first child with the average age of a first-time mother in the county now almost 31 years old. This means that Clare mothers are amongst the oldest in the country with only Galway and Cork City recording older first time mother.
New figures produced by the Cen- tral Statistic Office show that only 30 teenage births took place in the county last year with more mothers giving birth between the age of 30 and 40 than between 15 and 30.
According to the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, the number of babies born to teenagers has dropped by 44 per cent over the last 10 years. This represents the lowest level of teenage pregnancies since the foundation of the organisation.
“It is welcome that we are seeing a decline in the number of births to teenagers. This year for the first time, we have evidence from a number of sources that indicates why the birth rate for teenagers has declined,” said Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe, of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.
“There have been improvements in sex education, the age of first sex is stable at 17 years of age for men and increased slightly for women to 18 years of age. Ninety per cent of young people are using contracep- tion when they have sex for the first time and 80 per cent of young people use contraception every time they have sex.”
A total of 1,748 children were born to Clare-based parents last year or just under five new babies per day. Of these babies 887 were male with just 861 females babies being born. The birth rate in Clare last year was 14.9, which was well below the Munster average of 15.5 and the national average which was 16.3.