Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital delivers record number of babies in August

Melbourne’s western suburbs are the city’s most fertile with a record number of babies — close to 700 — delivered in August alone.

There is a baby boom out west with a record number of new arrivals in August that experts say may well be thanks to some summer loving and early Christmas and New Year celebrations.

The boom in births is also attributed to the growing population of young families in Melbourne’s fertile west, one of the country’s fastest-growing regions and now home to almost one million Victorians.

Western Health welcomed a record 625 babies at the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Sunshine and 70 at its Bacchus Marsh Hospital in August, in total an impressive average of 23 births a day.

Midwife Olivia Kivlighon with some of the new arrivals at Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Picture: David Caird

The smallest baby weighed just 881g while the largest tipped the scales at 5265g, a little over 11.5 pounds in old metrics. The grand total of 695 babies for the month included 11 sets of twins.

This makes the west at odds with much of Australia where in July KPMG analysis of population and birth data found fewer babies were born following the surge in births after the post-Covid lockdowns of 2021.

KPMG found a drop of 7 per cent in births in Victoria between 2021 and 2023 with its urban economist Terry Rawnsley putting that down in part to cost-of-living pressures which he said often influenced birthrates.

The west is celebrating a baby boom. Picture: David Caird

But Melbourne’s western region, covering Wyndham, Brimbank, Hobsons Bay and Melton council areas, has consistently delivered the largest share of births for Victoria in recent years.

Midwife Erica Cramond is a manager of one of the post-natal wards at Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s at Sunshine Hospital.

“This is always one of the busiest times of the years for us,” she says. “When you wind back nine months from August and September, it was the summer holidays, so you can do the math”.

Ms Cramond says the birth numbers at Western Health are a reflection of what’s happening around the area.

“The infrastructure around our hospitals just keeps expanding. The trajectory is going up and it’s going to keep going up,” she said.

“Our birth numbers are high, but our midwives and doctors never lose sight of the fact that every single birth is very special.

“That’s the beauty of working in maternity services. We’re providing care to women and babies that is individualised and bespoke to them.”