FOI reference: FOI-2024-1967
You asked
I would like to make a freedom of information request for information about the geographical distribution of multiple births (twins, triplets and higher order multiples) in the UK over the last ten years.
We would like to know the number of births for each order of multiples (i.e. number of twin births, number of triplet births, number of quad births, etc) per year for the last ten years, overall and broken down by ethnicity, for each hospital in the UK. We’d also like this data based on the postcode of mother’s residence at time of birth at postcode sector and/or LSOA level.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the production of births data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the births certificate at birth registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. We therefore do not hold the requested data for the whole of the UK. For Scottish and Northern Irish data, NRS and NISRA can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Regarding multiple births in England and Wales, all data we publish on multiple births can be found in tables 13-16 in our birth characteristics datasets. 2022 data will be published in May 2024.
Further breakdowns of this data for different geographical levels in England and Wales would require a bespoke tabulation. Bespoke extracts and tabulations of births data for England and Wales are available to order, subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, in line with the ONS Charging Policy. Such enquiries can be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.