Beijing : A total of 18.46 million babies were born in Chinese hospitals last year, a rise of 11.5 percent from 2015, according to the health authority.

More than 45 per cent of the newborns were not the first child in their families, according to a document from the National Health and Family Planning Commission on Sunday.

In the first year since the end of China's decades-long one-child policy, the newborn population in 2016 was its highest since 2000, according to the Commission.

Moreover, rates of maternal mortality, infant mortality and mortality among children under the age of five also dropped last year.-Agency