U.S. births rise for first time in seven years, though still lower than pre-pandemic levels

The U.S. birth rate is showing signs of life.

The number of babies born last year rose 1% over the year before, the first increase in seven years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics examined almost every birth certificate issued in 2021 and logged 3,659,289 births, up 45,642 from 3,613,647 in 2020, according to a new report, Births: Provisional Data for 2021.

The increase did not rise to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that people were still putting off childbearing during a time of crisis. The number was still lower than in 2019, when there were 86,000 more births. The 2020 drop had been the largest in almost 50 years, and officials attributed it to uncertainties stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year the U.S. Census Bureau had marked a similar pandemic decline, with the country’s population growing slower than ever due to a combination of dropping birth rates, higher deaths and limited immigration. The resulting 0.1% population growth was the lowest recorded since the U.S.’s founding in 1776.

The CDC report could only reflect numbers, not the reasons behind them, experts cautioned.

“When it comes to changes in fertility behavior, we’re limited,” Dr. Brady Hamilton, from the NCHS Division of Vital Statistics and lead author of the health agency’s provisional data report, told ABC News. “That’s where you need a survey about what’s behind the decision-making process.”

Neither could the report predict where the numbers would go next.

It “doesn’t necessarily mean that that declining trend is over,” Beth Jarosz, a demographer and program director at the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit that focuses on children’s well-being, told CNN. “I’m always a little bit skeptical of just one year [of data]. But in this case, I really would need to see what happens in 2022 to try to suggest that that’s any kind of a rebound or trend.”

Aside from last year’s nearly 3.7 million births, up from about 3.6 million the year before, other findings included a drop in birth rates for teens and women under 25; with increases in women in their early 30s (3%), in their late 30s (5%) and in their early 40s (3%), the CDC said.

Hispanic women saw a 1% birth rate increase, while white women’s rate rose 3%. Asian women saw a 1% drop, Black women a 3% drop and Native American and Alaska Native women a 4% decrease.

Small and premature infants — those born sooner than 37 weeks — were up 4%, to about 10.5% of births, the highest since 2007.

With News Wire Services