Report counts 23 births without health professionals in four years

At least 23 women in Iceland gave birth without a health professional present between 2022 and 2025, according to a report by a task force at the Ministry of Health, cited by mbl.is.

The report records four such births in 2022, six in 2023, nine in 2024 and four in 2025. The task force was appointed in June 2025, after mbl.is had reported a year earlier on health workers’ concerns about the trend. They said they believed it was only a matter of time before a human trafficking case emerged in connection with such births.

The report says the Children’s Act does not account for births without professional assistance, leaving the system unprepared to ensure that a child is properly registered in the National Registry. Health professionals are regularly asked to certify births they did not attend.

Most of the women who gave birth this way had some contact with health services during pregnancy, and information about them was recorded in maternity records. Another group consists of foreign women who do not know about or avoid health services, including women who may be living with violence or trafficking, according to the task force. The report says this group requires a different approach, potentially more closely linked to services for people experiencing violence, but a health professional must still certify the birth for the child to be registered.

The task force recommends that parents contact a birth facility in their health district, a health clinic or a home-birth midwife to request registration. Midwives and doctors can usually confirm a birth through a physical examination within 48 hours, the report says, but physical signs of birth fade quickly. After that period, it may not be possible to confirm the birth by examining the mother and child. If professionals cannot verify the birth, they must refuse to certify it, and parents should contact Registers Iceland about the next steps.