Canadian births rise

Canadian women gave birth to 367,864 babies in 2007 in the fastest annual increase since 1989, a government agency said Tuesday.

The total number of babies born in 2007 was the highest number since the mid-1990s and the fifth consecutive annual increase -- up 13,247 or 3.7 percent from 2006, Statistics Canada said.

Other countries with low fertility rates such as Spain, Sweden, Britain and Australia also experienced a rise in total fertility rates in recent years, it noted.

Mothers aged 30 to 34 were responsible for more than half of the births in Canada, marking "an important shift in the age structure of fertility" over the past decade that has seen motherhood delayed.

Previously, it was mostly women in their 20s bearing children.

While Canada's fertility rate is up, the demography bureau warned it remains well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. This is the fertility rate that must be maintained to replace the population in the absence of migration.