US birth rates plummet in 2023: CDC

After two years of increases, the number of births in the United States dropped by 2 percent in 2023—coinciding with the end of Covid. A report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics recorded 3,596,017 babies born in 2023. That’s 2 percent less than 3,667,758 babies born in 2022 and the 3,664,292 in 2021. 

The lower birth rate is double the average that existed between 2014 and 2019, when it declined by one percent each year but half of what it was for the period of 2019 to 2020, when it fell by 4 percent. The CDC reported that abortion rates increased 5% in 2021, the year before SCOTUS overturned Roe vs Wade, although these numbers may not reflect the total number of abortions as some states have incomplete or no reporting. 

The report documented the fertility rate for women between the ages of 15 and 44 at 54.5 births per 1,000 women, which was a 3 percent drop from 56.0 in 2022 and 56.3 in 2021. Fertility rates have also been decreasing in the United States over the past 10 years, running from 2 percent every year to a high of 4 percent between 2019 and 2020.

"Since the most recent high in 2007, the number of births has declined 17%, and the general fertility rate has declined 21%," the report states. The report made no attempt to explain why the birth and fertility rates are on the decline. It is a phenomenon that has characterized American society since the 1970s and that escalated during the market crash of 2008 to 2009, ABC News noted.

The report looked at prenatal care and discovered that fewer women are receiving what is generally seen as a vital component of health care during pregnancy. Without it, babies are more inclined to have a low birth weight and five times more likely to die, according to the Office on Women's Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Teenage pregnancies are also down, according to the CDC report. The pregnancy rate for teens aged 15-19 fell by 4 percent from 2022 and 6 percent from 2021. Birth rates around the world have shrunk since the Covid pandemic and Elon Musk has called that “the biggest threat” to mankind and a “population collapse. He has repeatedly urged people to have more babies.