The COVID baby boom that many experts were predicting would come as a result of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders was actually a bust, a new report finds.
In 2020, 3,605,201 babies were born in the U.S. compared to 3,747,540 babies in 2019, representing a 3.79 percent decline, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed on Wednesday.
Additionally, the number of births fell every month last year in comparison with the year before, with the largest drop seen in December.
What's more, declines were seen during the second half of 2020 - six percent from the year prior - in comparison with the first half of the year, which was only down two percent.
The CDC says the drops were the result of continuing declines of fertility rates over the last several years coupled with an unsteady economy, and adults experiencing fear and anxiety over the public health crisis and its uncertain end.
A new CDC report found there were 3,605,201 births in 2020 compared to 3,747,540 births in 2019, meaning 142,000 fewer babies were born (File image)
Between 2019 and 2019, the number of births declined for each month with the largest decline in December 2020, when 285,138 babies were born, an 8% drop from the year before
For the report, the CDC looked at birth records processed by the National Center for Health Statistics for 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The number of provisional births that occurred in 2020 were compared with the final counts of 2019.
In addition to the four percent drop in births from 2019 to 2020, researchers found that the number of births declined for each month.
The largest decline was seen in December 2020 when 285,138 babies were born, an eight percent decline from the 308,802 who were born in December 2019.
August 2020 saw the second largest large decline with 319,313 births, meaning there was a seven prevent drop from the 341,685 births in August 2019.
There was a larger decline in the second half of the year,
