Table 1 Characteristics of births to Inuit residents in the Hudson Bay communities where midwives were the primary birthing attendants, and the Ungava Bay communities where physicians were the primary birthing attendants, Nunavik, 1989–2000

	Hudson Bay	Ungava Bay	p Value*
All births, N	1529	1197
Infant sex, male %	53.1	50.7	0.21
Multiple birth, %	1.4	1.8	0.51
Mothers primiparous, %	36.0	29.7	0.0006
Maternal age (years), %			0.18
<20	26.6	24.0
20–34	69.2	72.4
⩾35	4.3	3.6
Marital status, %			0.05
Single	39.1	43.1
Common law union	41.0	36.6
Married	19.9	20.3
Maternal education, %			0.17
<11 years	61.5	64.6
11 years (completed high school)	15.8	16.1
⩾12 years (some college or higher)	22.7	19.3

*p Values in χ² tests for differences between the two sets of communities.