One in six mothers who planned home births had the baby in hospital

AROUND 200 babies are born every day in Ireland while 90 people die.

New Central Statistics Office figures show the birth rate is up slightly even though mums are continuing to get older when they have their babies.

The Vital Statistics reports showed there were 17,699 babies born in the first quarter of 2014, around 136 more than the same period last year.

And while the Irish birth rate is rising, the death rate has fallen by 3pc this year, with 8,110 deaths taking place in the same period.

The average age of first-time mothers this year is 30.5 which is up 0.3 on the same period of last year. The average age of all mothers giving birth was 32.3 years which is also higher than last year.

There were 339 births to teenage mothers in the period, four of whom were 15 or under with one of them already on her second baby.

Registered

Just eight babies born in the first three months of the year were registered within civil partnerships, while well over a third of all births were outside marriage altogether.

Limerick City had the highest number of births outside marriage accounting for 56pc of the total, compared with just one in four in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown. More than 2,000 babies were born in Dublin city, compared with just 108 in County Leitrim.

There were 65 infant deaths registered in the first quarter resulting in a slightly increased infant mortality rate of 3.7 deaths per 1,000 live births.

The overall death rate as fallen with heart disease and stroke the leading cause accounting for 2,594 deaths, or a third of the total.

There were 2,313 deaths from cancer meanwhile in the period, while lung disease such as pneumonia killed another 508 people.

Some 191 people died as a result of accidents in the first three months of the year, while 77 people took their own lives.

Men accounted for three-quarters of the suicides and the age group most affected was between 35 and 54.

Accidents

The leading cause of death varied widely depending on people's age with external causes such as accidents and suicides the biggest killers of young adults, while cancer killed most people between 35 and 74, and heart disease and stroke was the leading cause of death.

The number of marriages fell very slightly to 3,624 in the first quarter of the year, but there was an increase in civil partnerships to 67.

Irish Independent