NHS Maternity Statistics, England, 2022-23

This section reports on the number of reported deliveries. A delivery is the term used in HES data to describe child birth and is the ending of a pregnancy by one or more babies leaving a woman's uterus by vaginal passage or caesarean section.

Within this section we explore the reported number of deliveries by women’s age group, type of delivery at both the onset and end of labour, and the frequency that anaesthetics and analgesics were administered either before or during delivery.

Percentages in the following commentary, unless otherwise stated, are based on total ‘knowns’, e.g. the percentage of caesareans is based on all deliveries with a known method of delivery, excluding those with an unknown method of delivery.

There were 547,244 deliveries in NHS hospitals during 2022-23. This is a decrease of 5.4 per cent from 2021-22.

Over the past ten years the numbers of deliveries in NHS Hospitals fluctuated but are now at their lowest reported level in this time.

When comparing deliveries by age group to a base year of 2012-13, deliveries for all age groups of women have declined although by only 6 per cent level for women aged 30 to 39 years in 2022-23 compared to 2012-13.

Deliveries amongst women aged under 20 have more than halved since 2012-13 with 13,372 deliveries in 2022-23.

Spontaneous method of onset is most common as a proportion of total deliveries but has decreased from 64 per cent in 2012-13 to 43 per cent in 2022-23.

Caesarean method of onset increased from 13 per cent to 23 per cent and induced method of onset from 23 per cent to 33 per cent in the period 2012-13 to 2022-23.