Majority of babies now born to women older than 30 - and record number are ... trends now
The average age of a new mom in America is over 30, according to new data.
Over half of babies born in 2023 were to women in their thirties, provisional data from the CDC data shows, edging out those in the teens and twenties.
Meanwhile, a record number of women had their first child in their forties - with 12.6 per 1,000 births among women aged 40 to 44 last year.
Experts have attributed the shift to a rising cost of living throughout the US and women prioritizing their careers and educations before settling down to start a family, as well as the availability of IVF.
The rise of older mothers has also sparked debate about whether women waiting to have children are at risk of complications or fit into a 'maternal sweet spot' thanks to more stability and resources.
Older moms were most common in Washington DC , with 24.5 per 1,000 births being to women ages 40 to 44
Provisional data from the CDC's Wonder database found that about half of babies in the US are born to women over 30, while births to younger moms have declined
Teen pregnancies, on the other hand, hit a record low, with 13.6 births per 1,000 women. This was down two percent from the year before, though was still higher than the rate for women over 40.
And once the norm, an all-time low amount of women had babies in their early twenties. The birth rate for women ages 20 to 24 dropped from 61.5 per 1,000 the year before to 57.5 per 1,000.
The CDC's report found that there were 3.67 million births in the US in 2022, which researchers said was 'essentially unchanged from 2021.'
Though there was a one percent increase in births from 2019 to 2020, this average fell by one percent per year from 2014 to 2019. 'Previously, the number of births declined by an average two percent per year from 2007 to 2013 and increased one percent in 2014,' the researchers wrote.
The data was part of the National Vital Statistics Report on 2022 birth data, produced by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Provisional data for 2023 was collected via CDC's Wonder database.
The figures are collected from birth certificates registered in all 50 states and DC, as well as US territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.
The overall birth rate for women over 40 was 12.6 per 1,000 births, an all-time high.
