Since I’ve just started my blog on baby infographics, I thought it would be interesting to have a general look at baby birth statistics and facts from across the world. So here are some fun and interesting facts!
General Birth and Fertility Rates
- World-Wide Birth Rate: There are about 250 babies born every minute and more than 130 million born in a year according to The Guardian. I think this is amazing! During those long nights where my baby would wake multiple times to feed I remember thinking I wonder how many other mamas are out there feeding their babies right now too? Well, I did some math to try to break it down. The UNICEF Data estimates that about 42% of women breastfeed (54.5 million of the babies are breastfed). A baby roughly feeds for about 30 minutes every 4 hours so 12.5% of the time. (Note: This number varies based on the age of the child. Feeding can be a lot more frequent and longer when the baby is younger and lot shorter and less frequent when the baby is older, so I've tried to pick an average number.) Thus there are approximately 6.8 million mamas breastfeeding their babies at any given time. This number doesn’t include babies who are bottle-fed either so there’s probably a lot more mamas and daddies feeding their babies at any given moment! So mama, or daddy, in the middle of the night when you’re feeding your baby, you are definitely not alone!
- Fertility Rate: The Fertility Rate is about 2.5 births per woman according to OECD Data. The Guardian wrote an article stating the current fertility rate is a drop from what it used to be (around 4.5 - 7 births per woman in the pre-modern era (around the 1600’s)). It is thought that part of the reason for this drop is due to the decrease in the infant mortality rate. Babies born today are much more likely to survive than babies born in the 1600’s.
Birth Rates by Country
- Highest Birth Rates: According to the World Population Review, the countries with the highest birth rates are in sub-Saharan Africa and include Niger, Angola, Mali, Uganda and Zambia with above 40 births for every 1,000 people.
- Lowest Birth Rates: The countries with the lowest birth rates are more dispersed across the world and include Monaco, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Andorra, Japan and Puerto Rico with between 6-8 births for every 1,000 people.
- Countries like the USA, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom hover around 12 - 13 births per 1,000 people.
Birth Months
- According to a very interesting article on Visme, the most popular birth months change. It seems that the most popular birth months depending on what season occurred nine months ago. This would mean northern hemisphere countries would see similar popular birth months and the southern hemisphere countries would also see similar popular birth months. However, this conclusion isn’t necessarily the case as October and December still appear to be very popular months to be born in!
Universal Baby Activities
- Peek-a-Boo: The BBC wrote an article about how the Baby Laughter Project worked with babies across at least 20 different countries and found that games like peek-a-boo were pretty universal and entertaining for babies as they start to understand object permanence.
- Singing Lullabies: The BBC also released another article that looked at how women sang lullabies to their babies across the world. Even if the words were a bit menacing (for example think about the words to Rock-a-Bye Baby) the way mamas sang to their babies with tenderness and care was pretty universal!
- Outdoor Play: It is pretty clear from a little bit of googling and the Harvard Health Blog that playing outside is crucial for baby and child development and is definitely something that is done across the world.
Birth and Baby Traditions
There are some really interesting traditions related to babies and birth across the world! Collaboration World wrote an interesting post about some of these traditions. I’ve highlighted a few below that stood out to me, but you should definitely check out the post for more information.
- In Lithuania, babies compete in a 'Fastest Crawler' competition in June every year. This event must be hilarious as babies are so distractible. It makes me think of the hilarious baby races held at various basketball games in the USA! Just have a look on YouTube and you'll see what I mean.
- In Japan, the new mother and baby go straight to the mothers’ parents’ house after birth where the mother stays in bed for 21 days. Sounds dreamy to me! I definitely could’ve used some serious bedrest post-labor.
- In Ecuador, when a woman goes into labor, the father of the child gives his wife a shirt damp with his sweat from a long day of work to his wife for strength during labor. I’m not so sure about this one!
- In Bulgaria, working mamas get 45 days paid leave before the baby comes and then 2 years paid leave after the baby arrives! Their job must be held for them for up to 3 years. I think I’m living in the wrong country!
Comments
Post a Comment