Juliette Gagliardi
Junior Researcher
Pregnancies, newborns, and babies in Italy - Statistics & Facts
Fertility and birth rates, characteristics of childbirths, mother’s age at birth, as well as attitudes toward assisted reproductive treatment (ART), are figures that can appear very different across countries. Those figures reflect countries’ demographic changes, the state of their economy, their culture, and their healthcare system. Like most developed countries, characterized by declining births and aging of the population, Italy is experiencing a decrease in fertility rate. In 2021, with every woman having 1.25 babies on average, Italy was among the countries with the lowest fertility rate in the world. During the same year, the birth rate amounted to 6.8 children born per 1,000 population.
Childbirths
Vaginal delivery is the most common type of birth in Italy, followed by C-section and vacuum-assisted vaginal delivery. Since 2005 the number of C-sections decreased, from 390.9 to 324.5 cesarean deliveries per 1,000 live births in 2020. Nevertheless, the percentage of cesarean deliveries in Italy, which amounted to 32.6 percent in 2020, was excessive compared to the figure of 15 percent considered appropriate by the WHO (World Health Organization). Currently, in Italy, most deliveries take place in public hospitals, while very few are in private domiciles. For example, the region with the highest percentage of home births was the Autonomous Province of Trento, with only 1.09 percent.Mother’s characteristics
In 2021, most mothers in Italy were aged between 30 and 39 years when giving birth and roughly 80 percent of them had Italian origins. The average age of mothers at birth slowly increased in Italy and in 2021 reached 32.4 years. Sicily was the region with the lowest average age, with mothers aged 31.4 years when giving birth, as well as the region with the highest percentage of mothers below 20 years, with 2.21 percent.Assisted reproductive treatment (ART)
The number of assisted reproductive treatments (ART) undertaken in Italy increased every year since 2005, however, a slight decline was recorded in 2020, when a general decrease in the number of births was experienced with the outburst of COVID-19. Roughly 2.9 percent of pregnancies in Italy were obtained through ART in 2021 and women above 40 had the highest rate of pregnancies resulting from ART, with 12.8 percent. Different issues can lead to undergo fertility treatments. For example, in 2020, almost 12 percent of couples underwent infertility treatments due to infertility of both individuals in the couple, while 15.5 percent by male infertility.
