The declining birth rate witnessed in Bulgaria since the 1950s might be seeing a bit of a slowdown. In July 2008 alone, 417 babies were born at the Sofia birthing and gynaecological hospital Sveta Sofia.

This is in comparison with 376 for the same month in 2007, weekly newspaper Zhivot i Zdrave wrote in its August 13 2008 issue.

In Plovdiv, a similar increase in births has been observed, with 18 babies being born in one 24-hour period at Sveti Georgi University Hospital – for 206 births total in July – and 11 born on August 1 in Selena Hospital. Three hundred fifty additional births were recorded at the other birthing hospitals in Bulgaria's third-largest city.

The article also wrote that the majority of babies born were males.

And with the way that things are going for August – 103 births in the city in the first four days of the month, according to Sveti Georgi University Hospital doctor Nikola Milchev, as reported by Zhivot i Zdrave, it looks like another record will be made.

On Shum.bg, an August 6 article reported that there had been 831 births (386 male, 445 female) in the city since the beginning of the year. Among these were 127 pairs of twins, and one set of triplets.

In the first six months of 2008, 390 babies were born in Kazanluk, a central-Bulgaria city that, in 2007, had a population of 82 855. The figure for births also included the surrounding areas of Nikolaevo, Gurkovo, Pavel Banya and Muglizh, kazanlak.com wrote. An additional 41 were born outside the country, but have applied for birth certificates in the Kazanluk birth-record department, bringing the total to 431.

For comparison, there were 432 births in Kazanluk the first six months of 2007, and 910 for the whole year.

Since 1995 countrywide, the average age at which a woman births her first child has risen from 22.2 years old to 25.3 in 2007. Correspondingly, the age of marriage has also risen, from 22.6 years of age in 2005 to 25.9 in 2007, according to data from the National Statistical Institute (NSI). The NSI report, entitled Population and Demographic Processes in 2007, wrote that “these two figures for average age ... underline the general tendency for birth of the first child to take place before marriage. The changes in average age should be looked at as a positive trend in the reduction of the early birthing age in the country.”

There were 78 592 births in Bulgaria in 2007, 4097 more than in 2006.