Livebirths

More male babies were born alive in 2013 (917,110 or 52%) than female babies (844,492 or 48%) for a sex ratio of 108 males per 100 females. This ratio means that for every 108 alive baby boys born, there correspond 100 alive baby girls born in 2013. For over a decade now, statistics show that for all live births, the number of male babies always exceeds the number of female babies. Consistently, the estimated population revealed that Philippines is a male dominating country in terms of number.

Among the 17 regions, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) had the highest sex ratio of 111 males per 100 females, while, Mimaropa was the lowest with 107 males per 100 females.

More than four (4) in every five (5) babies or 85.1% of the total live births were medically attended either by physician (51.1%), nurse (2.0%) or midwife (32.0%). This year (2013), medically attended births is 3.4 percentage points higher than in 2012 (81.7%). Of the 17 regions in the country, only four (6) regions had more than 50% of their births were attended by physicians. Majority of the regions were all from Luzon ; NCR (64.7%) , CAR (76.1%), Ilocos (66.0%), Cagayan Valley (55.6%) and Central Luzon (58.6%). While the other region was the Western Visayas with 50.8%.

However, there is still more than one out of ten births attended by traditional birth attendants or unlicensed midwives. Overall, more than one-tenth (14.3% or 251,661) of total live births were attended by them. Across regions, ARMM (50.2%) and MIMAROPA (29.7%) were reported to consistently have the highest proportion of live births attended by traditional birth attendants.

About 209,582 or 11.89% of live births were born to mothers under 20 years old. This was translated to more than one birth in every ten births were born by teenage mothers.

Almost three out of ten (28.82%) live born were from mothers belonging to age- group 20-24 years and had the most number of live births with 507,653 babies. Closely followed by mothers of age-group 25-29 years with 438,563 live births or 24.9%. While, only 458 or 0.03% live births were born to mothers beyond reproductive age (50 years and over).

Health Indices by Month of Occurrence

Source: Philippine Health Statistics 2013, Epidemiology Bureau, DOH
Page Last Update: 03 June 2016, 9:05 AM