What is happening at Forth Valley?

A comparison of births from 2020-2022

Public Health Scotland released the maternity data for all the health boards in Scotland. So how does Forth Valley compare to the rest of Scotland and what about the individual councils that make up the area? You can view the data tables here.

Forth Valley is doing really well with encouraging women to have spontaneous births - especially compared to 2020. It is one of the MOST IMPROVED health boards! It improved from 54.7% to 57.2%.

The highest was Dumfries and Galloway at 59.7% closely followed by Tayside at 58.3%.

The lowest was Grampian at 44.8%.

It is not surprising that having improved at Spontaneous births, the induction rate has decreased for Forth Valley - another move in the right direction.

However with over a third of births being induced, at 35.6% there is still a long way to go to get to the WHO recommended rate of 20%!

So a move in the right direction but overall this percentage is still far too high!

Forth Valley has the LOWEST Emergency C-Section rate in Scotland for 2022!

Well done Forth Valley!

It is one of the only health boards to have kept its numbers consistently low, with the trend in Scotland for this number to increase from 2020.

And it's elective C-Section rate is also low compared to numbers in other health boards.

It should be noted however, that those with some of the highest rates are the health boards with islands so lack of access to emergency healthcare may be contributing to a higher elective percentage in these areas.

Taking this into account, its numbers are on a par with Borders, Dumfries, Lothian, Fife and Tayside. Only Glasgow has very high numbers for a city.

With low emergency c-section results, perhaps it is not surprising that Forth Valley has a higher percentage of assisted births.

Perhaps it is more successful or confident in these techniques than other health boards and so has low emergency c-section results.

The percentage in Forth Valley was 12.4% this third highest for Scotland in 2022 with Lothian and Grampian ahead.

So where is the best place in Forth Valley to live?

• Stirling has the highest percentage of Spontaneous births, followed by Clackmannan then Falkirk.

• The induction rate is lowest in Clackmannan, then Stirling, then Falkirk.

• The lowest C-Section rate is in Stirling, then Falkirk, then Clackmannan

• The lowest Assisted Birth rate is in Stirling, then Clackmannan then Falkirk.

Taking all things into account, Stirling comes out on top!