The data presented here are obtained from the Scottish Morbidity Record 02 (SMR02) submitted by maternity hospitals to ISD, who have collected this information since 1975.

A wide range of information is collected on the SMR02 - some of which are detailed below:

• mother - age, height, smoking history, previous obstetric history.
• birth - induction, analgesia, method of delivery, outcome.
• baby - apgar score, sex, gestation, weight.

Although there is no legal requirement to submit these data to ISD, the level of submission falls only slightly short of the known  total number of births occurring each year. As a result, Scotland has some of the best information on  pregnancy and births available anywhere in the world.

This release includes data for financial year ending 31st March 2009. 

A summary of the key points is available here  .

Tables & charts can be accessed through the menu on the left hand side.

GROS vs SMR02

For year end March 2009 there were 57,945 live births recorded on SMR02 records.  For calendar year 2009 there were 59,046 live births registered with the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS).  The shortfall is approximately 2 percent and the majority of this is due to incomplete data submissions from maternity units with the remainder due to a variety of reasons including poor recording of home births and births in Non-NHS hospitals.  Further details can be found on our notes page . 

Data Issues

NHS Tayside data issues for 2006 and 2007 have now been resolved and figures for these years revised. As a result of this resolution there was also a small impact on the surrounding NHS board areas.

Further details can be found on our notes page.

Perinatal and Neonatal Deaths

Annual reports on perinatal, neonatal and postneonatal infant deaths in Scotland are published jointly with NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.