'More than 88,000 live births reported in Oman last year'

Muscat: More than 88,000 live births were recorded in the Sultanate last year according to official data.
The total number of live births in the Sultanate by the end of 2016 reached 88,346, including 81,868 Omanis and 6,478 expatriates compared to 86,286 births, including 79,926 Omani and 6,360 at end of 2015 with a death toll of 8,167 according to the statistics published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
According to the bulletin, the number of live births increased in 2016 by 242 per day, up from 2015 by about 6 live births per day, bringing the birth rate to 10 live births per hour.
The number of Omani births continued to rise by 18,987 live births between 2011 and 2016 with a change rate of 30 per cent.
The highest increase among Omanis between 2012 and 2013 was 6,143 live births while the number of Omani births increased by a smaller amount in previous years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 to reach 3,236 and 1,942 live births respectively.
The rate of change in births rose from 247 births between 2013 and 2014 to 69 live births between 2014 and 2015, and 118 live births between 2015 and 2016.
The highest rate of childbearing in the 25 to 29 age group was 32.7 per cent in 2015 and 32.1 per cent in 2016. The birth rate of women of childbearing age (over 35 years) was 21.4 per cent in 2016, up from 1.1 per cent in 2015.
The governorates of Muscat and North Al Batinah accounted for the largest percentage of Omani live births (40.2 per cent) while the lowest percentage was in the governorates of Al Wusta and Musandam (1.9 per cent).
More than half the births of expatriates were in Muscat Governorate were 53 per cent while the lowest in the Al Wusta and Musandam governorates (1.7 per cent). August also recorded the highest percentage of live births by 9.2 per cent and the lowest of 7.7 per cent was in February and April.
The number of deaths in the Sultanate in 2016 was 8,828 deaths, including 7,399 Omani and 1,429 expatriates.
Omani deaths constitute 83.8 per cent of the total deaths in the Sultanate. The percentage of males was 60.9 per cent, which is equivalent to 4,507 deaths while expatriate deaths constitute 16.2 per cent of the Sultanate’s total mortality. Males account for 81.4 per cent of the total number of deaths in the Sultanate.
The monthly death rate in 2016 was about 735 deaths while the daily average was 24 deaths.
Statistics indicate that there were an additional 52 deaths for Omanis between 2011 and 2012, but it decreased by 366 deaths between 2012 and 2013, rising by 226 and 326 deaths between 2013 and 2014 and 2014 and 2015, respectively, which continued to rise by 65 deaths between 2015 and 2016. -ONA
Deaths of expatriates continued to rise until 2013, but declined by 76 deaths between 2013 and 2014, rising again by 22 and 94 deaths between 2014 and 2015 and 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Between 2011 and 2016, the number of infant deaths rose by 220, with a change of 36.8 per cent.
The number of under-five mortality cases increased by 284, with a change of 39.1 per cent. In contrast, the number of youth deaths decreased by 43. North Al Batinah Governorate accounted for 22.5 per cent of deaths in the Sultanate, followed by Muscat Governorate by 17.3 per cent while Al Wusta and Musandam governorates represented the lowest percentage of deaths in the Sultanate by 1.8 per cent while March recorded the largest percentage of deaths by 9.4 per cent.