BENDIGO'S birth rate has fallen to its lowest in three years, with 1413 bundles of joy coming into the world in 2018.
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It has dropped from 1496 babies born in 2017, but is up from the 1239 low-point seen in 2015.
Bendigo women are also having fewer babies on average, down to 1.93 from 2.05 in 2012, according to the data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week.
Bendigo women are still giving birth to more babies than the national average of 1.74, though.
That higher birth rate is helping drive the city's population up higher.
An extra 122 Bendigonians came into the world than died last year, a comparison of different Bureau of Statistics data sets show.
Mothers continue their trend of giving birth at a later age, including in the Bendigo area.
More women in their 20s are holding off giving birth in a later decade of their lives, driving the average age of Bendigo mothers up by an extra six months.
But Bendigo mothers are younger at 30.6 years of age, on average, than those nationwide, who are 31.4-years-old.
Fathers too are getting older. Nationwide, their average age has risen just under six months over the last 10 years to 33.5 years old.
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Elsewhere in the central Victorian region region, Mount Alexander mothers gave birth to 135 babies in 2018.
That is the lowest number of babies in the five years the Bureau of Statistics data tracked.
It was the same story in Echuca's Campaspe region. Mothers there gave birth to 394 babies, down from .
They gave birth to the most babies in 2013, with 450.
Maryborough's Central Goldfields region had 115 births, down from 142 five years ago.
Kyneton's Macedon Ranges area had 519, an increase from 464 in 2012.
The Loddon Shire, to Bendigo's north-west, had 73 in 2018.
There were 315,147 registered births across Australia in 2018, an increase of 1.9 per cent on 2017.
While the Bureau of Statistics is yet to publish any numbers for 2019 in the central Victorian region, Bendigo Health's maternity ward is preparing for a busy holiday period.
Seventeen women are scheduled to give birth between now and the end of Boxing Day, a hospital spokesperson said.
Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
