Delayed child bearing in a Chilean public hospital

Abstract

Postponement of motherhood is one of the most striking sociodemographic changes of modernity. To evaluate the age of primiparous women giving birth at a public hospital in Santiago, Chile. Retrospective study, assessing the age and nationality of all women whose delivery occurred between 2009 and 2017 in a single hospital. A total of 49,254 deliveries were registered: 43% were in primiparous women (73% Chilean and 27% foreign women). The proportion of foreign women increased from 12% in 2009 to more than 60% of total deliveries in 2017. Four percent of primiparous women were aged over 35 years of age and there was a steady increase in the age increase of primiparous women in the nine years of study. There was a higher proportion of normal-weight newborns among foreign women compared to their Chilean counterparts (86 and 81% respectively). In this sample of women attended at a public hospital, a steady increase in the age at first delivery was noted in a period of nine years. There was also a constant increase in the proportion of foreign women giving birth.