A record 33,000 compared with the current 20,000: how the birth rate in Kyiv has changed

The record number of births in the capital is 33,000 per year, if we are talking about Kyiv’s municipal institutions. This figure has now fallen significantly. Director of the capital’s perinatal center Dmytro Hovsiev told this in an interview with the publication Censor.net, UNN writes.  

"The largest number of births in Kyiv’s municipal institutions that we have ever recorded was 33,000 per year. This was between 2000 and 2010. If we take the last two years, 2025 and 2026, the birth rate has declined significantly – 20,000 births per year. On the one hand, everything is clear – both why so few people are giving birth and why there are no women who want to have children. On the other hand, there are certain causes related to health, and there are others that we call social," Dmytro Hovsiev said. 

We remind you that, according to the Ministry of Justice, 8,352 children were born in Kyiv in the first half of 2026, the highest figure in Ukraine. However, the birth rate in the capital fell by 16% compared with the same period last year.

Kyiv became the leader in birth rate, but indicators are declining 23.07.26, 16:24 • 8877 views

At the same time, according to Hovsiev, for three years from February 2022, there was a decline in the number of premature births – from 10% to 5% of the total. The figure has now returned to its pre-2022 level. 

Dmytro Hovsiev also spoke about the first days of the Perinatal Center’s operation after the start of the full-scale invasion by russia. 

"On February 24, 2022, when everyone was leaving Kyiv and there was panic all around, an ambulance was on its way to our maternity hospital to pick up a child with a congenital heart defect – we had scheduled surgery for the 24th for a woman whose fetal heart problem had been detected during an examination. And this could not be postponed or rescheduled… The surgery took place despite everything. Immediately after the cesarean section at our maternity hospital, the baby was taken into an ambulance and transported to the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, where our colleagues operated on the newborn that same day. The child had a critical congenital heart defect – transposition of the great arteries. At that time, there was no evacuation for most doctors. We had to do our jobs," Hovsiev said. 

According to the director, from February 24 to the end of May 2022, 515 births were attended at the Perinatal Center. 

"On the day the bombardments began, amid all this utter horror, we operated not only on women whose procedures had been scheduled, but also performed emergency surgeries and delivered babies in the basement. We used operating rooms located in the safest areas. They were completely surrounded with sandbags so that, in the event of shelling, nothing would interrupt the operations or deliveries. All of this was both dangerous for everyone and highly responsible for the doctors providing care. Two days after the start of the full-scale offensive, a missile struck the building next to the maternity hospital; essentially, it could have been aimed at us – it flew past our facility and hit a residential building. Everyone understood that this was no joke, that it was a real, terrible war…" he said. 

According to Hovsiev, the maternity hospital has its own boiler room, and even then it had a generator – today, there are generators at every branch – which makes it possible to ensure the uninterrupted operation of equipment even in the event of power outages. 

"We also had a supply of pellets, and we thought in advance about what we would do if they ran out and where we would get firewood… We were prepared to live autonomously; we always have a reserve, and it helped us then. That is why women also stayed with us after giving birth. With their tiny babies, they felt safer being near the medical staff," the director said. 

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