Births to moms 35 and older continued to rise, with the
highest rates in that age group since the 1960s. But those gains were offset by
record-low birth rates to moms in their teens and early 20s, the CDC found. Its
report is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last
year.
A little under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last
year, about 3,000 fewer than the year before. Because the numbers are
provisional and the change was small, officials consider births to have been
“kind of level from the previous year,” said the CDC’s Brady Hamilton, the lead
author of the report.
U.S. births were declining for more than a decade before
COVID-19 hit, then dropped a whopping 4% from 2019 to 2020. They ticked up
about 1% in 2021, an increase experts attributed to pregnancies that couples
had put off amid the early days of the pandemic.
More findings from the report:
— The highest birth rates continue to be see in women in
their early 30s. The number of births for women that age was basically
unchanged from the year before. Births were down slightly for women in their
late 20s, who have the second-highest birth rate.
— Births to Hispanic moms rose 6% last year and surpassed
25% of the U.S. total. Births to white moms fell 3%, but still accounted for
50% of births. Births to Black moms fell 1%, and were 14% of the total.
— The cesarean section birth rate rose slightly, to 32.2% of
births. That’s the highest it’s been since 2014. Some experts worry that
C-sections are done more often than medically necessary.
— The U.S. was once among only a few developed countries
with a fertility rate that ensured each generation had enough children to
replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. But it’s been sliding, and in 2020
dropped to about 1.6, the lowest rate on record. It rose slightly in 2021, to
nearly 1.7, and stayed there last year.
More complete and detailed 2022 numbers are expected later
this year. That data should offer a better understanding of what happened in
individual states and among different racial and ethnic groups, Hamilton said.
It also may show whether births were affected by the U.S.
Supreme Court decision last June overturning Roe v. Wade, which allowed states
to ban or restrict abortion. Experts estimate that nearly half of pregnancies
are unintended, so limits to abortion access could affect the number of births.
If such restrictions are having an affect on births, it
didn’t show up in the national data released Thursday.
It’s possible the abortion restrictions will lead to higher
births rates in 2023 — more likely among younger women than older moms, said
Ushma Upadhyay, a reproductive health researcher at the University of
California, San Francisco. But even if there is a rise, it may not bring the
nation back to pre-pandemic birth levels, given other trends, she added.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get back there,” she said. -AP