As quoted in daily national Postimees, this has increased by about 10%, representing an additional 300 families in Estonia having a third child, in the last two to four years.

''If you look at proportion of babies who are the third-born in a faily, from all births, there has been a general rise over the whole decade and in the last two years in particular," said Alis Tammur, Senior Research Analyst at the Statistical Office.

There had been a corresponding rise in welfare support to three or more-child families during the same period. Whereas in 1 July last year a three-child family would have received an allowance of €200 per month, this has more than doubled to €500 per month at present.

Since this support is only valid for six months, its increase does not on its own explain the uptick in the number of births; although having said that the rise in welfare support had been made public a few months before it came into effect, thus enabling families to plan an extra child more easily than they had done, it was reported.

According to the CIA World Factbook Estonia's birth rate at an estimated 10.1 live births per 1,000 inhabitants in 2017 is slightly higher than neighbouring Latvia's (9.7) and slightly lower than the figure for Finland (10.7) over the same period.