The number of women giving birth with help of the group's women and children's services has exceeded 1600 for the first time.

In 2017, 1465 gave birth there. The next year 1495 arrived before reaching 1601 in 2019.

Swelling demand for the service is largely due to a growing population in Bendigo and the towns surrounding it, director of nursing and midwifery Shelley Hardingham said.

"But there is also a percentage of mothers coming from outer regions like the East Wimmera area, Mildura and Swan Hill," she said.

"The risk for those mothers and babies are too high for the health services closest to them."

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It is hard to predict exactly how many women will book in to give birth over the next few years.

"We don't expect it will decrease but its a difficult crystal ball to look into. We would expect that it would continue to rise," Ms Hardingham said.

There is no reason not to expect 10 per cent growth every year, she said.

New statistics released before Christmas showed that overall Bendigo women gave birth to 1413 babies in 2018, regardless of the hospital they were born at.

That was the lowest amount in three years but was up from a decade-low-point of 1239 seen in 2015.

The birthrate is helping drive population growth in Bendigo.

An extra 122 Bendigonians came into the world than died last year, a comparison of different Bureau of Statistics data sets show.