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US Fertility Rate At A 30-Year Low

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Grace Carr Reporter
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Women in the U.S. are having fewer babies than ever before, but, interestingly enough, women in their 30s and early forties are having more babies than in past years.

The U.S. general fertility rate has declined to a 30-year low point at 62 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 in 2016, according to a study released this September by the Center For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC).

This number marks a new low — down one percent from 2015 — in American birth rates and points to cultural and demographic changes across America.

Birth rates for women in their 20s declined from 2015 to 2016 by four percent for women aged 20-24 years old. During the same time span, the rate for women aged 25-29 years declined two percent while birth rates for women older than 30 rose.

Since 2007, the birth rate has risen 19 percent for women in their early forties, two percent for women in their early 30s, and 11 percent for women in their late 30s.

Teen birth rates have also declined 51 percent since 2007.

(Source: Center For Disease Control And Prevention).

(Source: Center For Disease Control And Prevention)

The CDC based its report on data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

The preterm birth rate rose for the second consecutive year, adds the report. Preterm birth rates declined from 2007 to 2014, according to CDC research. “This decline is due, in part, to declines in the number of births to teens and young mothers,” the CDC notes on its website.

However, the preterm birth rate is up four percent from 2014 to 2016. It’s unclear, and too early to tell, what caused this uptick.

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