The number of babies born in the U.S. each year has fallen to a new record low, according to an analysis of 2023 birth certificate data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last year’s slowdown marks an official end to the crisis increase in new babies which started during the COVID-19 pandemic. At least 3,591,328 babies were born in the US in 2023, a 2% decrease from the 3,667,758 born in 2022.
This is in line with annual declines before the pandemic, the report said, with an average of about 2% fewer babies born each year.
The year before, there were already signs that the pandemic surge in births was coming to an end. There were a bit fewer babies born in 2022 compared to 2021, although agency officials said at the time that this decline was not large enough to be considered a statistically significant decline.
“Last year the difference was very small. This year it is around 74,000. So it’s quite large,” the CDC’s Brady Hamilton, one of the report’s authors, told CBS News.
Although data for nearly 100% of registered births has already been reported to the agency, the report’s estimates remain “preliminary estimates” until the last remaining data is reported.
Thursday’s new report from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics comes from closely watched birth certificate data that the agency collects year-round from state and local authorities. The report was published earlier this year. Last year’s preliminary report was only released in June.
“We started early and kept the momentum going, which is how we managed to get this early release,” Hamilton said.
The total fertility rate is falling
Last year’s total number of new births amounts to a rate of 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women in the US. This figure, called the total fertility rate, calculates the average number of births women will have over their lifetime if current rates remain the same.
Unless the U.S. reaches 2,100 births per 1,000 — which amounts to an average of 2.1 children per woman — the overall population could shrink without another influx of people. Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau have attributed recent population growth to picking up immigration and a decline in deaths.
The U.S. total fertility rate has been below the level needed to replace the deaths of previous generations since 1971.
“Think about that in terms of the woman and her partner. So if you have a total fertility rate of two, you replace him and you replace her in the population. It has to be 2.1 to offset the mortality.” said Hamilton.
The number of new births in 2023 remained the same or decreased compared to 2022 for most groups, except for Hispanic women, who saw a 1% increase.
The teen birth rate plateau
Birth rates by age group have also fallen or remained unchanged between 2022 and 2023 for almost all women, young and old. This includes women aged 40 to 44 years old, who had previously seen the rate of babies born increase almost every year since 1985.
However, a once a declining number of teenage births has gradually leveled off in recent years, with a 3% decline between 2022 and 2023. For every 1,000 female teenagers aged 15 to 19, 13.2 births were reported.
“It’s important to remember that if you look at the previous years, from 2007 to 2022, the percentage of teenage births aged 15 to 19 fell by 7% on average. And now it’s down 2 to 3%. So the question is why,” said Hamilton.
“We need to investigate why it’s only doing half of what it did, and it could be a number of factors. There’s still a lot to investigate and figure out.”
The decline was smallest among younger teens aged 15 to 17, whose birth rates were virtually unchanged from 2022.
The number of caesarean sections is increasing again
According to the CDC’s new report, 32.4% of new births in 2023 were C-sections, compared to 32.1% in 2022 figures.
This is the fourth increase in a row in the sector number of caesarean sections in the wake of the pandemic, after interest rates fell between 2009 and 2019.
The caesarean section rate is the highest among all countries Black mothers, increased to 37% last year. Rates also went up for Asian, white and Hispanic women.
Among low-risk births, the caesarean section rate has risen to 26.6%. Low-risk births are defined as head-first births of singleton babies delivered to term, at least 37 weeks later, to mothers who have never had children before.
This is the highest percentage since 2013, the report said.
