About one out of ten babies are born to adolescent mothers

The number of registered live births to adolescent mothers or those aged 10 to 19 years showed a decreasing trend in the past five years. A decline of -22.7 percent in adolescent births was observed from 2016 to 2020 with 203,085 and 157,060 births, respectively. These births consistently made up about one-tenth of all live births in the country.  (Figure 1 and Table 1)

From 2016 to 2020, adolescent birth rate has been declining each year.  Between this period, a decrease of -24.0 percent was observed from 20.1 per 1,000 females aged 10 to 19 years in 2016 to 15.2 per 1,000 females in 2020. (Table 1)

While the number of total adolescent births is declining, births to mothers younger than 15 years old has been slightly increasing each year, apart from the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Between 2016 and 2020, registered births to adolescent mothers aged 10-14 years increased by 11.0 percent from 1,903 in 2016 to 2,113 or 0.14 percent of all registered births in 2020.  During this period, an average of five to seven births daily are to mothers 10-14 years old.  Moreover, birth rate in 2016 was 37.2 per 100,000 females 10-14 years old, which was up by 8.4 percent in 2020 (40.3 births per 100,000 women aged to 10-14 years). (Table 1)

Undersecretary 
National Statistician and Civil Registrar General