20 years

34 years

The proportion of all women who met the selection criteria* and who had a vaginal birth with the assistance of instruments.

* Selection criteria: Women included are those who gave birth for the first time and met all of the following criteria:

• aged between 20 and 34 years
• gestational age at birth between 37 and 41 completed weeks
• pregnancy has one baby only (singleton)
• the presentation of the baby is vertex (baby's head was at the cervix).

Excluded are those women who have given birth prior to the current birth or did not meet the selection criteria.

100 × (Numerator ÷ Denominator)

Number of selected women giving birth for the first time who had a vaginal birth with the assistance of instruments.

All selected women.

• Year of birth
• State or territory of birth
• Hospital annual number of births
• Remoteness category (from mother's area of usual residence)
• Indigenous status of mother
• Hospital sector
• Patient elected accommodation status

Data elements are from the Perinatal national minimum data set (NMDS) or have been provided as voluntary non-standardised items by the states and territories. Records with data that are missing, not stated or not interpretable have been excluded from the denominator.

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

Gestational age is a clinical measure of the duration of the pregnancy. For the National Perinatal Data Collection gestational age is reported as completed weeks.

An instrumental birth is a procedure that uses instruments (forceps or vacuum extraction) to assist the baby to come out through the vagina.

Patient elected accommodation status is available for all jurisdictions from 2006.

Source of definition: Australian Council of Healthcare Standards (ACHS) Indicator 1.3: Selected women giving birth for the first time who undergo an instrumental birth. The ACHS define an instrumental birth as the use of forceps or vacuum. This ACHS indicator is based on the definition by Women's Healthcare Australasia (WHA) Core Maternity Indicators Project (CMIP).

N[NN.N]