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Age group – age in groups; age in full years at a particular moment of time, i.e. age at last birthday.
Age-specific fertility rate – annual number of live births per 1000 women of a certain age. Measures birth rate in a particular age group. The age-specific birth rate is calculated by dividing the annual number of live births in women in a particular age group by the mean annual female population in that age group, multiplied by 1000.
Antenatal – prenatal, occurring before birth.
Apgar index – a quick estimation of the newborn’s health status on a 10-point scale, accounting for heart rate, respiratory status, muscle tone, irritability and skin colour.
Birth weight – the first weight of an infant obtained after birth (preferably during the first hour of life).
Breastfed infants – infants who are exclusively or partially breastfed. Partially breastfed is an infant who has at least one meal of breast milk per day.
County – for births statistics: place of residence; county where the woman lives. Area or settlement where the woman lives permanently or most of the time. Usually, data on place of residence registered in the population registry are used. Until 2017, data by the counties is distributed by the administrative division that existed before administrative reform (October 2017). Data starting from 2018 is distributed by new administrative division.
Crude birth rate – annual number of live births per 1000 mean annual population.
Duration of pregnancy – duration of pregnancy in full weeks (or days), measured starting from the first day of last normal menstrual period or using ultrasound.
Exclusively breastfed infants – infants who are fed exclusively with breast milk (incl. pumped breast milk). Additionally they may get vitamins and medicaments, but not tea, water, juice, infant formulas or anything else what would replace meal.
Fertile age – women aged 15-49.
Fertility rate – annual number of live births per 1000 women 15-49 years of age.
First visit during pregnancy – first visit to a medical institution during the current pregnancy that was registered as the first input on the pregnancy card.
Live birth – birth of a child with any sign of life (breathing, heartbeat, pulsation of the umbilical cord and/or apparent movements of voluntary muscles) regardless of the length of gestation.
Neonatal period – interval from birth until seven days of age.
Partially breastfed infants – in addition for breast milk, child gets infant formulas or other food (porridge, vegetable puree etc).
Perinatal period – interval starting after 22 full weeks of pregnancy (154 days) until seven days of age after birth.
Place of residence – area or settlement where a person lives permanently or most of the time. Usually, data on place of residence registered in the population registry are used.
Prebirth visit to women’s health centre – here: visit to a doctor (gynaecologist, family doctor, etc.) and/or midwife before birth.
Preterm child – birth of a baby less than 37 weeks (259 days) gestational age.
Stillbirth or late fetal death – intrauterine death with birth weight of at least 500 g and occurring after 22 week of pregnancy.
Total fertility rate – mean number of live births per women that would occur during her lifetime if current age-specific birth rates applied. Total birth rate is the sum of annual age-specific birth rates (multiplied by five if 5-year age-groups are used).
Births
The basis for data collection is a birth card that is filled for each infant born in Estonia (live or stillbirth). Data providers for the Estonian Medical Birth Register are all medical institutions providing obstetric services in the Republic of Estonia.
The birth statistics represents data about all births that has occured in the territory of Estonia during a year (women giving birth (mothers) with Estonian residency is also distinguished in published data); birth and abortion data is also available at NIHD's webpage.
Home births are included in some hospital's birth counts, since 2017 it is registered separetly, see in table SR03 and SR68. The birth place of a child is ticked as one of the following:
Breastfed infants
The aim of collecting infant breastfeeding statistics is to have regular national overviews about share of infants, who are on natural diet among one-year old children.
The data is collected from all health care service providers who hold relevant activity licence in accordance with the Health Services Organisation Act and the Ministry of Social Affairs or the minister responsible for the area confirmed decree about the requirements for the preparation of reports on health care statistics and economic activities in the field of health care, the composition of the data and the procedure for the submission of these. The data about infant breastfeeding is presented in the annual report "Infants breastfeeding" by primary health care providers (family doctor's offices) who provide neonatal and infant monitoring. Health care providers submit data according their place of activity, therefore the infant breastfeeding data by counties is distributed by family doctor's operating place, not by the mother's or the child's residence.
The data is published in absolute and relative numbers (as a proportion of up to 1 year old children).
Births
Allvee K, Karro H, Serkina V. Eesti Meditsiiniline Sünniregister 1992-2016. Eesti Abordiregister 1996-2016. Estonian Medical Birth Registry 1992-2016. Estonian Abortion Registry 1996-2016. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2017. Report in pdf-format
Allvee K, Karro H, Serkina V. Eesti Meditsiiniline Sünniregister 1992-2015. Eesti Abordiregister 1996-2015. Estonian Medical Birth Registry 1992-2015. Estonian Abortion Registry 1996-2015. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2016. Report in pdf-format
Allvee K, Karro H, Serkina V. Eesti Meditsiiniline Sünniregister 1992-2014. Eesti Abordiregister 1996-2014. Estonian Medical Birth Registry 1992-2014. Estonian Abortion Registry 1996-2014. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2015. Report in pdf-format
Allvee K, Karro H, Serkina V. Eesti Meditsiiniline Sünniregister 1992-2013. Eesti Abordiregister 1996-2013. Estonian Medical Birth Registry 1992-2013. Estonian Abortion Registry 1996-2013. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2014. Report in pdf-format
Allvee K, Karro H, Serkina V. Eesti Meditsiiniline Sünniregister 1992-2012. Eesti Abordiregister 1996-2012. Estonian Medical Birth Registry 1992-2012. Estonian Abortion Registry 1996-2012. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2013. Report in pdf-format
All the reports, incl. previous years publications, are available on NIHD's webpage
Breastfed infants
Vaz JS, Maia MFS, Neves PAR, et al. Monitoring breastfeeding indicators in high-income countries: Levels, trends and challenges. Maternal & Child Nutrition 2021;e13137. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13137
Information about Estonian Medical Birth Register and Estonian Abortion Register on National Institute for Health Development's webpage
Viktoria Serkina
Estonian Medical Birth Register and Estonian Abortion Register
National Institute for Health Development
Phone: +372 659 3993
E-mail: Viktoria.Serkina@tai.ee
Eva Anderson
Department of Health Statistics
National Institute for Health Development
Phone: +372 6593 812
E-mail: Eva.Anderson@tai.ee
Updated: 1.11.2022