Many people dream of becoming parents from the time they are children. They play house. They play with baby dolls. They show an interest in certain baby names.

While many boys and girls want to grow up to be dads and moms, it seems that in the United States, there are actually fewer babies being born. In fact, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, in 2018, there were 2% fewer births in the United States than in 2017. Even though there were 3.79 million births in 2018, that’s still the lowest number of babies born in 32 years.

There are many reasons that women aren’t having as many babies as in previous years. One could be that fewer teenagers are getting pregnant. According to the data, women from ages 15 to 19 had 7% fewer births than in 2017. In fact, the number of babies born to women under age 35 decreased for all age groups.

There was only one exception to this decrease in the number of births. One group of women actually gave birth to more children in 2018 than in 2017. This group is women over age 35.

This finding could be due to the fact that many women are going to college and waiting longer to have children. They are choosing to focus on their career before starting families of their own.

Meghan Markle is one example of this trend of waiting longer to start a family. She recently gave birth to her first child, the youngest member of the British royal family, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, at age 37.

Again, while 3.79 million births in one year may seem like a lot, at that rate, it’s not enough for the population to replace itself. If this trend continues, or if women have even fewer births, the population in the United States would eventually decrease.

While this data is interesting, there is no need for alarm, at least not yet. Watch the video below to find out why this lower birth rate is not necessarily expected to continue in years to come.

 

Does it surprise you that there were fewer babies born in 2018 than in the 32 years prior? If you have children, how old were you when you had your first child? Do you think that this trend of fewer babies being born will continue, or do you think eventually more women having children at an older age will make up for younger women choosing not to have children?