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| TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR |
This week winds up our series on childbirth in the GTA with a look at homebirth and midwifery.
The information comes from data I bought from the Office of the Registrar-General, which was taken from the Statement of Live Birth form (.pdf) which is filled out when a child is born in Ontario.
All the maps are based on the first three characters of the postal code of the mother, and show data from 2007, the most recent year available. Postal codes with fewer than 30 births have been dropped from the map this week.
No distinction is made on the form between planned and unplanned homebirths.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the maps look roughly similar, with strong clusters in the old east and west ends of the central city, the west-end cluster being bigger. The midwifery map has a cluster in northern York Region roughly along the 400, and another in Burlington.
Here are the top 10 neighbourhoods for midwife-delivered babies:
| M6R | Toronto: High Park/Roncesvalles | 13.88% |
| M6G | Toronto: Little Italy: Seaton Village | 12.87% |
| L9N | East Gwillimbury: Holland Landing | 11.39% |
| M6S | Toronto: Bloor West Village/Swansea | 10.17% |
| M4M | Toronto: South Riverdale | 10.13% |
| M6P | Toronto: Bloor West Village/High Park | 9.65% |
| M6H | Toronto: Trinity/Niagara | 9.16% |
| M4L | Toronto: Leslieville/western Beaches | 8.89% |
| M4J | Toronto: Trinity/Niagara | 8.84% |
| M5C | Toronto: Jarvis/Queen/Yonge/King | 8.82% |
and the top 10 for homebirths:
| M6R | Toronto: High Park/Roncesvalles | 6.12% |
| L1W | Pickering: lakeshore area | 6.00% |
| M5C | Toronto: Jarvis/Queen/Yonge/King | 5.88% |
| M5B | Toronto: Ryerson area | 5.19% |
| M6H | Toronto: Ossington/St. Clair/tracks/Dufferin | 5.09% |
| M4M | Toronto: South Riverdale | 5.06% |
| M4L | Toronto: North Toronto (N of Eglinton/Mount Pleasant) | 4.65% |
| M6G | Toronto: Little Italy: Seaton Village | 4.62% |
| M4P | Toronto: North Toronto (N of Eglinton/Mount Pleasant) | 4.49% |
| M6P | Toronto: Bloor West Village/High Park | 4.31% |
For simplicity’s sake, the data order I placed with the Registrar-General covered the L- and M-series postal codes, which roughly works out to all of south-central Ontario, including Hamilton, Niagara and the area stretching north to Georgian Bay. The maps haven’t shown areas outside the GTA*, but I’ve been keeping an eye on that data.
Last week (Map: No other parent listed, 2007), I probably should have pointed out that two Hamilton neighbourhoods (L8L, more or less the North End, and adjoining L8M, a box bounded by Main St. E./the escarpment/Upper Wentworth/Ottawa Street) also have very high rates of single motherhood, and would have made a top 10 list if we were depicting all of south-central Ontario.
This week, the data shows that the Hamilton area has a much higher rate of midwife deliveries than anywhere else in south-central Ontario. Here is the top 10 list for midwife deliveries, if we look at this whole area (.pdf):
| L9G | Suburban (non-rural) Ancaster | 18.52% |
| L9H | Dundas | 15.81% |
| L8S | Hamilton: McMaster/Westdale area | 15.70% |
| L8P | Hamilton: 403/escarpment/King/James | 15.68% |
| L8R | Hamilton: Roughly 403/King/James/harbour | 14.06% |
| M6R | Toronto: High Park/Roncesvalles | 13.88% |
| L2S | East Gwillimbury: Holland Landing | 12.90% |
| M6G | Toronto: Little Italy: Seaton Village | 12.87% |
| L9N | East Gwillimbury: Holland Landing | 11.39% |
| L0S | Niagara Region: Eastern rural areas | 11.37% |
Here is the equivalent home birth table:
| M6R | Toronto: High Park/Roncesvalles | 6.12% |
| L1W | Pickering: lakeshore area | 6.00% |
| M5B | Toronto: Ryerson area | 5.19% |
| M6H | Toronto: Ossington/St. Clair/tracks/Dufferin | 5.09% |
| M4M | Toronto: South Riverdale | 5.06% |
| L0A | Northumberland County: western area | 4.76% |
| L3C | Toronto: Little Italy: Seaton Village | 4.71% |
| M4L | Toronto: Leslieville/western Beaches | 4.65% |
| M6G | Toronto: Little Italy: Seaton Village | 4.62% |
| M4P | Toronto: North Toronto (N of Eglinton/Mount Pleasant) | 4.49% |
I'm conscious with all these map projects that there are readers who know far more about any given subject than I do - I'm just a guy with some data and some tools. Here are some questions for readers:
1) Looking at this data, there seems to be a greater proportion of hospital deliveries by midwives outside the central city (in Hamilton and York Region, for example), and a greater proportion of home births downtown. Is there a reason? Both of our children were born at home in Riverdale, and I found it reassuring that if anything went wrong there were major hospitals within easy reach. Does it have to do with closeness to hospitals, or cultural differences between midwife practices?
2) In Toronto, the map of midwife deliveries roughly tracks the location of midwife practices. (map: zoom in to see Toronto in detail). Is this supply, demand, or something of both?
* There are several reasons. One is that the boundaries on the maps have to be built by hand in a labour-intensive process, and adding postal areas outside the GTA would have involved creating another 67 polygons, or two-dimensional shapes. Another is that the maps are slow to load as it is (especially in IE) and I’m reluctant to slow them down further. Another is that several areas (Dufferin County and Niagara) have rural postal codes which completely enclose urban postal codes, and the XML system we’re using doesn’t allow for doughnut polygons (I’m aware that conventional geoKML does and and also GoogleMaps v3, as of this week).
** Two low-population postal codes excluded
Just curious about the legend. You have 0-2% and 1-2%. Can you explain or is it an error?
Posted by: Marcel Fortin | October 07, 2009 at 06:12 PM
Error. Corrected now. Tx for pointing it out -
Posted by: pcain | October 09, 2009 at 03:17 PM