This is a report on birth statistics gathered from the monthly submissions of civil registry documents by the Local Civil Registry Offices in the Province of Biliran. All data presented here in are preliminary tabulations.

REGISTERED BIRTHS

      A total of 1,473 birth registrations were recorded in the province during the 1st quarter of 2023. Naval, the provincial capital, had the largest number of birth registrations with 692. Cabucgayan and Caibiran followed with 185 and 168 births, respectively.

     Of the total, about 40.05 percent or 590 births were timely registrations while 59.95 percent or 883 births were late registrations. The Municipality of Naval had the highest proportion of timely and delayed registered births with 64.58 percent and 35.22 percent, respectively.

     By sex, more than half (52.27 %) were females while males accounted for 47.73 percent. This translated to a sex ratio at birth of 91 male infants for every 100 female infants.

      The child’s legitimacy status at birth during the 1st quarter of 2023 reveals that majority were nonmarital children, or children conceived and born to unmarried parents. Based on the preliminary tabulations, there were 1,110 nonmarital children which accounts for 75.36 percent while there were 363 marital children comprising 24.64 percent of the total registered births.

      The Municipality of Naval had the highest proportion of nonmarital live births with 46.49 percent, followed by Cabucgayan with 12.88 percent. The rest of the municipalities recorded a similar trend of higher fraction of nonmarital children than the marital children.

       Age group 26-30 years old was the most reproductive for women. Approximately 23.12 percent of the registered births in the 1st quarter of 2023 were to women within this age group. This was followed by the age groups 21-25 years old and 31-35 years old with 22.37 and 18.38 percent share, respectively. The age group above 45 years old was the least productive for women with 0.48 percent registered
births.

      On one hand, the data also reveals that there are around 295 Certificate of Live Births that do not have any information regarding the age of the father which is associated to a high number of delayed registrations. The next largest fraction of men (22.89 %), became father at age group 26-30 years old followed by age group 21-25 years old with 17.37 percent. The smallest percentage of fathers, on the other hand, was within the younger age group, below 18 years old, with less than one percent (0.34%).

      Births were delivered by different types of attendants. Majority (43.65 %) of the registered births during the 1st quarter of 2023 were attended by physicians and followed by hilot/unlicensed midwives with 37.88 percent. There were also births attended by midwives with 17.24 percent.

    The Municipality of Naval recorded the highest physician birth attendants with 77.44 percent followed by Caibiran with 9.18 percent. Meanwhile, the highest number of births attended by hilot/unlicensed midwives was observed in the Municipality of Cabucgayan (19.18 %) followed by Caibiran with 18.10 percent.

TECHNICAL NOTES

Vital statistics are derived from information obtained at the time when the occurrences of vital events and their characteristics are inscribed in a civil register.

Vital acts and events are the births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages, and all such events that have something to do with an individual's entrance and departure from life together with the changes in civil status that may occur to a person during his lifetime. Recording of these events in the civil register is known as vital or civil registration and the resulting documents are called vital records.

Live Birth - is a complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of the pregnancy, which after such separation, breathes or shows any other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; each product of such a birth is considered liveborn.

Period when to report the event

• Live births shall be reported for registration to C/MCR not later than thirty (30) days from the date of birth.

SGD. RENAVIL V. CUEVA
Chief Statistical Specialist