Statistics Canada
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Pregnancy Outcomes

2005

82-224-X


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Highlights

  1. In 2005, the pregnancy rate rose to 54.6 pregnancies per 1,000 women, up by 1.3 from the historic low observed in 2004.
  2. There were an estimated 447,485 pregnancies during 2005; this means that there were 9.3% fewer than the 493,195 pregnancies in 1996, ten years earlier.
  3. Births accounted for 76.5% of the pregnancy outcomes in 2005, up from 74.2% in 1996, while induced abortions and fetal loss decreased respectively from 22.7% to 21.6%, and from 3.1% to 1.9%.
  4. The decline in pregnancies was mostly concentrated in women under 30 years of age where the pregnancy rates decreased in every age group.
  5. The largest percentage decrease in pregnancy rates was found in teenagers. In 1996, the number of pregnancies per 1,000 women under 20 years of age was 38.7; by 2005, this rate had fallen to 24.6. The decline was greater for younger teen girls where the pregnancy rate for those under 15 years of age dropped from 4.1 in 1996 to 1.9 in 2005, and from 27.3 to 15.8 over the same period for girls aged 15 to 17.
  6. In contrast, pregnancy rates rose for women over 30, with those aged 35 to 39 reporting the greatest increase, from 42.7 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 1996 to 51.9 in 2005. However, the largest relative increase occurred for women 40 years of age and over, whose pregnancy rate rose by 25 per cent, from 8.8 in 1996 to 11 births per 1,000 women in 2005.