Friday 29 December 2023

One more Estonian born into the world

My sister rang me at 5am yesterday to announce she had just given birth to her eight child. EIGTH CHILD! I honestly thought she was planning to stop at six but then the seventh arrived and now there's eight. My family has really grown during the past ten years and there's another on the way. My brother will be a father for the first time in February and my other brother is engaged and will start his family in the near future.

It is quite unusual for a woman to have so many children these days and despite the high cost of living and growing inflation, it didn't dissuade my sister from having a large family. She now has the perfect balance of children, four boys and four girls. All the girls' names begin with the letter 'L' and all the boys (apart from the eldest) start with the letter 'J'. I am thrilled to welcome the new little bundle of joy into our family and looking forward to meeting him when I next visit Australia.

In Estonia there are 125 mothers with 10 or more children. In 2022 the Aan family from South Estonia won the European Large Family of the Year Award. This was the first time Estonia has ever won this award.

Estonian birth statistics

The current fertility rate in Estonia is 1.41.
Estonian women have 2.0 children on average, compared to 1.63 children among the ethnic Russian population.
The average age of a woman at birth of first child is 28.6 years
In 2022 there were 6,014 boys and 4,632 girls born in Estonia
This includes 168 twins and 3 triplets
The most popular baby names are- Olivia, Saara, Sofia, Eliise and Mia. Sebastian, Adrian, Gustav, Rasmus, David, Hugo and Karl.