Number Of Babies Born In US Drops To Historic Lows
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – The number of babies born in the United States has fallen to historic lows after already dropping below the level needed for one generation to replace itself — since 1971, experts say.
America’s birthrate fell by 2 percent in 2023, according to provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The drop suggests a return to the downward trend in birthrates seen before the declared COVID-19 pandemic, with numbers hitting historic lows.
The CDC said just under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, compared with almost 3.7 million in 2022.
The decline follows relative stability in the birthrate from 2021 to 2022 after a modest 1 percent rise from 2020 to 2021 when the coronavirus pandemic raged, and many were forced into lockdowns.
Demographers cited economic, fertility, and age factors as among the reasons for the falling birth rates.
The report also highlighted a continuing decrease in teen birth rates and noted an uptick in cesarean deliveries.
PRETERM BIRTHS
The incidence of preterm births has remained consistent with previous years.
Brady E. Hamilton, the report’s lead author, said the teen birthrate trends from 2022 to 2023 were among the more interesting findings.
The birthrate for those ages 15 to 19 reached record lows in 2023, according to the provisional data, but that represents only a 3 percent decrease from 2022.
However, births continued to shift to older mothers. Older age groups saw smaller decreases in birth rates, and the birth rate was highest among women ages 30 to 34 – with about 95 births for every 1,000 women in this group in 2023.
Women 40 and older were the only group to see an increase in birth rate, although – at less than 13 births for every 1,000 women – it remained lower than any other age group.
“The highest rates have, over time, been shifting towards women in their 30s whereas before it used to be with women in their 20s,” Hamilton said. “One factor, of course, is the option to wait. We had a pandemic, or there’s an economic downturn, let’s say – women in their 20s can postpone having a birth until things improve and they feel more comfortable. For older women, the option of waiting is not as viable.”
As maternal mortality rates continue to rise in the U.S., so do rates of cesarean deliveries, or C-sections, which Hamilton called “major abdominal surgeries.”
Nearly a third of all births (32.4 percent) were C-sections, a share that is now the highest it’s been in a decade, according to the new CDC report.
MORE COMMON
But C-sections are becoming more common among low-risk births too, such as those among women having their first birth with pregnancies that have reached term and single fetuses that are facing head-first, experts say.
Provisional birth data is based on birth records received and processed by the National Center for Health Statistics as of January 25.
Trends capture more than 99 percent of all birth records for the year, but officials cautioned that data is subject to change once all documents are reviewed.
Last year marked the first full year after the US Supreme Court’s decision revoking the federal right to abortion.
An analysis from November suggests that states with abortion bans had an average fertility rate that was 2.3 percent higher than states where abortion was not restricted in the first half of 2023, leading to about 32,000 more births than expected, official records showed.
Yet, for now, that has done little to change the downward spiral of babies being welcomed in the United States.
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