US Baby Boom in 2007 - Statistics just released

March 18, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

The US is experiencing a Baby Boom. Births break all previous records now at 4.3 million with 40% of babies born to unmarried parents.

Abortions appear to have dropped to their lowest levels ever and teen birth rates are up for the second year in a row.

The 4,317,119 births in 2007, beats all previous records as reported by federal researchers on Wednesday.

On average, a U.S. woman has 2.1 babies in her lifetime. The “magic number” required for a population to replace itself.

Some predict this baby boom has little to do with the recession and summarize on historical data that the reverse is true. Dr. Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health said, “I expect they’ll go back down. The lowest birth rates recorded in the United States occurred during the Great Depression — and that was before modern contraception.”

2007 reflected a good economy coupled with cultural trends that promoted childbirth, she and others have noted.

Among the states, Utah continued to have the highest birth rate and Vermont the lowest.

The statistics are based on a review of most 2007 birth certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.