More than six hundred babies were born last year at hospitals in Steinbach and Ste. Anne.

Jan Gunness is Director of Health Services at Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach. She says from January 1st to December 31, 2015 there were 476 babies born at the hospital in Steinbach. That is down only slightly from the 482 born in 2014.

Over at Ste. Anne Hospital, 127 babies were born between January 1st and December 31st, 2015. That is up from the 114 born a year earlier.

That means 603 babies were born compared to 596 one year earlier.

But Gunness says this doesn't include home births; it also doesn't include the births by women from the southeast at hospitals outside the region.

"We know that probably between forty and fifty per cent of our population give birth in Winnipeg," says Gunness. "That's for a variety of different reasons."

Meanwhile, Vital Statistics has come out with the most popular baby names given in the southeast in 2015. The top girl's name was Sophia, followed by Leah and Lillian. For the boys, there were six names tied for the number one spot. They are Blake, Hudson, Hunter, Liam, Parker and Jayden.