US births fell last year, marking an end to the late pandemic rebound, experts say
NEW YORK — The number of births in the US fell last year, resuming a long national decline.
Just under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is approximately 76,000 fewer than the year before and the lowest annual number since 1979.
U.S. births were declining for more than a decade before COVID-19 hit, then fell 4% between 2019 and 2020. Then they continued to rise for two years in a row, an increase that experts attribute in part to pregnancies that couples had postponed during the crisis. the early days of the pandemic.
But “the 2023 numbers seem to indicate that that bump is over and we’re back to the trends we were in before,” said Nicholas Mark, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin who studies how social policies and other factors affect affect health and fertility.
Birth rates among teens and younger women have long been falling, but are rising among women in their 30s and 40s — a reflection of women pursuing education and careers before trying to start a family, experts say. But last year, birth rates fell for all women under 40 and remained flat for women in their 40s.
Mark called that development surprising and said: “There are indications that this is not just a matter of postponement.”
Rates fell among nearly all racial and ethnic groups.
The numbers released Thursday are based on more than 99.9% of birth certificates filed in 2023, but they are preliminary and the final birth count could change as they are finalized. For example, the preliminary birth rate for 2022 appeared to show a dip, but ultimately exceeded 2021’s number when the analysis was completed.
There could be an adjustment to the 2023 data, but it won’t be enough to erase the “significant” decline seen in the preliminary numbers, said the CDC’s Brady Hamilton, the lead author of the new report.
Experts have wondered how births could be affected by the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed states to ban or restrict abortion. Experts estimate that nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, meaning restrictions on access to abortion could impact birth rates.
The new report indicates that the decision did not lead to a national increase in births, but the researchers did not analyze birth trends in individual states or parse data across all demographic groups.
The new data raises the possibility of an impact on teens. The US teen birth rate has been declining for decades, but the decline has been less dramatic in recent years, and the decline appears to have stopped for teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 17.
“That could be Dobbs,” said Dr. John Santelli, a professor of public and family health and pediatrics at Columbia University. Or it could be related to changes in sex education or access to contraception, he added.
Whatever the case, the flattening of birth rates among high school students is concerning and indicates that “whatever we do for kids in middle and high school is faltering,” Santelli said.
More findings from the report:
– From 2022 to 2023, preliminary birth rates fell 5% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, 4% for Black women, 3% for white women and 2% for Asian American women. Births rose 1% for Hispanic women.
—The percentage of premature babies remained approximately stable.
—The birth rate by caesarean section rose again, to 32.4% of births. Some experts worry that C-sections are being performed more often than is medically necessary.
– The US was once among the few developed countries with a fertility rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace itself – about 2.1 children per woman. But it has been declining and will fall to around 1.6 in 2023, the lowest figure ever recorded.
Research shows that many American couples would prefer to have two or more children, but see housing, job security and the cost of childcare as major barriers to having more children.
“There’s something getting in the way of them achieving those goals,” Mark said.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.