Who’s having babies these days? According to the latest CDC data, more than 4 million women in the United States give birth each year, and more than 10 percent of those births are to teenage mothers. On the other end of the spectrum, just over 100,000 babies are born each year to women over 40. Between 2005 and 2006, the U.S. birth rate increased for women in their teens, twenties, thirties and early forties. And as a result of this across-the-board increase, the total fertility rate (the estimate of the average number of births that a group of women will have over their lifetimes) is currently the highest since 1971, and the first time since then that the rate is above replacement level (the level at which a given generation can replace itself).
Think you might be pregnant? Learn more about the early signs of pregnancy.
