Chinese Maternity Hospital midwife M C Chan and staff nurse S Jeyalaksmi tending to newborn babies at the confinement ward's nursery.
PETALING JAYA: The number of live births in the country has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded, says the Statistics Department (DOSM).
In its quarterly population report released today (May 14), DOSM said that the number of live births recorded a decrease of 11.5% to 93,500 births as compared to 105,613 births in the first quarter 2024.
“Live births decreased 11.5 percent to 93,500, lowest ever recorded,” the department said in its Demographic Statistics Malaysia First Quarter 2025 report.
The decline in births reflects falling fertility rates in the country.
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According to the DOSM report, male babies outnumbered female babies with 48,124 births as compared to 45,376 births.
The sex ratio of live births was 106 males to every 100 females.
Selangor had the highest live births at 18,254 (19.5%), while Labuan recorded the lowest at 278 (0.3%).
The majority of mothers who gave birth in the first quarter of this year were in the 30-39 years age group, representing 49,816 (53.3%) of births recorded.
The second biggest group of mothers were aged 20-29 years (39.3%), followed by 40 years and over (6.0%) and less than 20 years (1.4%).
Three births were recorded to mothers aged 55 years and above.
In terms of ethnicity, Malays accounted for 68.8% (64,326 live births) of the total live births.
Live births for Other Bumiputra increased to 12.6% as compared to 12.3% in the first quarter 2024.
Other Bumiputra consists of Bumiputra Sabah, Bumiputera Sarawak and other Bumiputra in Peninsular Malaysia.
The live birth rates for Chinese and Indians decreased to 8.6% and 3.8% as compared to 9.6% and 4.2% in the first quarter of 2024, respectively.
