“Births: Final Data for 2017” Released

The comprehensive report on final births data for the United States was released on November 7, 2018, documenting a total of 3,855,500 births registered in the United States, down 2% from 2016. Compared with rates in 2016, the general fertility rate declined to 60.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44. The birth rate for females aged 15–19 fell 7% in 2017. Birth rates declined for women in their 20s and 30s but increased for women in their early 40s. The total fertility rate declined to 1,765.5 births per 1,000 women in 2017. Birth rates for both married and unmarried women declined from 2016 to 2017, and the percentage of babies born to unmarried women (39.8) did not change between 2016 and 2017.  Many of these findings were documented in a May 2018 provisional release of 2017 data.

The final data are contained in the new publication “Births: Final Data for 2017.”

Some new data for 2017 are included for the first time in the new report:

• The percentage of women who began prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy rose to 77.3% in 2017.
• The percentage of all women who smoked during pregnancy declined to 6.9%. Percentages dropped for all race/ethnic groups from 2016 to 2017 except for Hispanic mothers (no change) and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander mothers (a 0.1 percentage point increase).
• Medicaid was the source of payment for 43.0% of all births in 2017, up 1% from 2016.
• Twin and triplet and higher-order multiple birth rates were essentially stable in 2017.
• The average age of U.S. mothers at first birth in 2017 was 26.8 years, an increase from 26.6 years in 2016 – and a new all-time high.