There’s a new baby boom in the US!
It’s a baby boom! Government researchers just reported that in 2007, there were 4.3 million live births. That tops even the baby boom of the 1950s. After concerns on some fronts in recent years about the US population not reproducing itself, this is a sigh of relief. But the numbers are slightly misleading. According to the Centers for Disease Control, back in the 50s, there were fewer women having babies–but they had more of them (about four kids each). Today, women have 2.1 children a piece (I guess I’m just .1 away from normal. Any of you over your limit? You can have my share.) The highest numbers are in Utah. The lowest in Vermont. I wonder if that is adjusted for population? A quarter of the “women” giving birth are teenagers. And 40% of the births were to unwed parents.
Experts of every stripe are out in force today, ranging from the abortion advocates to family researchers, sociologists and economists. Each of them is weighing in on why things are the way they are. You may not even be surprised to learn that some of the issues here have been blamed on George Bush. (That’s kind of a long-standing game between my husband and I. What did someone blame on Bush today?) Economists say the trend in babymaking matches the economy. Since 2007 was a good year, there were lots of babies. Dr. Carol Hogue, a professor of maternal and child health at Emory University, thinks the birth rate will drop with the downturn in the economy. “The lowest birth rates recorded in the United States occurred during the Great Depression.”
Now the study didn’t say how many of the unwed births were unintended, nor how many of the unmarried women were in long-term relationships with the father. Still, 40% is not a good number. Why are teenagers getting pregnant? Some are saying it’s because they don’t have an abortion clinic nearby. Some say that George Bush tried to teach them abstinence-only but they didn’t get the message. For whatever reason, the teen birth rate had been going down for 15 years. Then suddenly, last year, it went back up.
I am no expert in such matters. But I have been a high school teacher for many years. I can tell you that teenagers are no longer branded by a negative social stigma when they get pregnant. So if it happens to one of them, they no longer have to face ‘outcast’ or ‘hussy’ status. Girls and boys freely discuss their sexuality in school. I also have noted that most of my students who were willing to speak up are very opposed to abortion on a personal level. They would much rather raise a baby than abort it. (This matches the fact that abortion rates have been dropping steadily. Which causes the other?) It also seems like a cultural trend to me when you consider that the numbers are not balanced among different races. The birth rate among black teenagers is twice as high as whites. Hispanic teenagers have three times as many babies as white girls. I live and teach in a community that is more than half hispanic. I don’t know all the ins and outs because I am not hispanic myself. But I do see a positive commitment to family among them. A baby is a good thing. Again, these are just my observations. Of course there are other experiences out there.
So why are older women having babies out of wedlock? Maybe for the same reasons. And, if you add in the fact that marriage is slightly on the decline, it makes sense. Again, if you look at the number breakdown, it is very much a trend within certain cultures. Almost 72% of all black babies were born to unwed mothers. A little more than half of hispanic babies were. Do you have any explanation for this other than cultural attitudes?
There were a few more interesting findings:
- One third of all births are by cesarean. (In Puerto Rico, it’s almost half of all births.) “Every pregnant woman in the U.S. should be alarmed by this rate,” said the president of the advocacy group, International Cesarean Awareness Network advocacy group. Pam Udy continued by saying that more than half of those could have been avoided. If you had a cesarean, why? Was it elective? Was it planned?
-On a positive note, there are fewer premature babies born now. Fewer infants are low-birth weight, too. Is this the result of younger mamas? Or better health care? None of the above?
What do you think of all these numbers?
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