AIHW - Maternity Indicators - Episiotomy for Women having First Birth for Non-instrumental Vaginal Births (%) (PHN) 2012-2016

This dataset presents the footprint of the percentage of women who had an episiotomy when giving birth for the first time and giving birth vaginally and non-instrumentally, by the mother's usual residence. This has been calculated with the number of females having their first baby who had an episiotomy during a non-instrumental vaginal birth, divided by the number of females having their first baby who gave birth vaginally and had a non-instrumental vaginal birth, and multiplied by 100. The data spans the years of 2012-2016 and is aggregated to 2015 Department of Health Primary Health Network (PHN) areas, based on the 2011 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). The data is sourced from the National Perinatal Data Collection (NPDC), which is a national population-based cross-sectional collection of data on pregnancy and childbirth. The data are based on births reported to the perinatal data collection in each state and territory in Australia. Midwives and other birth attendants, using information obtained from mothers and from hospital or other records, complete notification forms for each birth. A standard de-identified extract is provided to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) on an annual basis to form the NPDC. For further information about this dataset, please visit:

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare - National Core Maternity Indicators Data Tables.

Metadata Online Registry Entry.

Please note:

AURIN has spatially enabled the original data using the Department of Health - PHN Areas.

A birth is defined as an event in which a baby comes out of the uterus after a pregnancy of at least 20 weeks gestation or weighing 400 grams or more.

Included are those females who gave birth for the first time and had a vaginal birth, with or without instruments. Females who had a multiple birth are included if this was the first time they had given birth.

Excluded are those females who did not give birth for the first time or gave birth by caesarean section.

Non-instrumental vaginal births include spontaneous vaginal and vaginal breech.

Caution should be used when interpreting these results. There was no standardised collection across jurisdictions for the data used to derive this indicator.

For multiple births, the perineal status after the birth of the first-born baby was used.

From 2004 to 2013, a combined laceration and episiotomy value could be recorded; from 2014 onwards, episiotomy could be recorded separately.

Data were not available from Victoria for 2009.

The sum of the reported 'Grouped by' values may not equal the Australia total.