Study: Age of First-Time Moms Is Going Up
Women in the U.S. and other developed countries are waiting significantly longer before having their first children than new moms of a generation ago, according to a study by the CDC.
The average age of first-time mothers in the U.S. jumped from 21.4 in 1970 to 25 in 2006, an increase of 3.6 years, according to a report in the August edition of NCHS Data Brief, a publication of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
By comparison, the average age at first birth in Switzerland is 29.4 and in Japan is 29.2.
One explanation of the change in average age of first-time mothers is that the proportion of first births to women 35 and older has increased nearly eight times since 1970, the researchers say.
Researchers T.J. Mathews, MS, and Brady E. Hamilton, PhD, both of the National Center for Health Statistics, say average age at first birth is important because it influences the total number of children a woman might have as well as the population's size and future growth. A mother's age is also a factor in birth outcomes such as birth weight and birth defects.
The study also shows:
• The average age at first birth has risen five years or more in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, while increasing less than 2.5 years in Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
• Since 1990, average age at first birth has increased across all racial and ethnic groups.
• Asian or Pacific Islander women had the oldest average age at first birth, at 28.5, and American Indian or Alaska Native women the youngest at 21.9.
• In 1970, average age at first birth was lowest in Arkansas at 20.2 and highest at 22.5 in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. In 2006, Mississippi had the lowest average age at 22.6 and Massachusetts the highest, 27.7.
• The average for non-Hispanic white women was higher at 26 than for the U.S. population as a whole, 25. The average for non-Hispanic black women was 22.7 and the average for Hispanic women was 23.1.
By Bill Hendrick
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
?2009 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved
© 2009 WebMD, LLC.. All Rights Reserved. The average age of first-time mothers in the U.S. jumped from 21.4 in 1970 to 25 in 2006, an increase of 3.6 years, according to a report in the August edition of NCHS Data Brief, a publication of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
By comparison, the average age at first birth in Switzerland is 29.4 and in Japan is 29.2.
One explanation of the change in average age of first-time mothers is that the proportion of first births to women 35 and older has increased nearly eight times since 1970, the researchers say.
Researchers T.J. Mathews, MS, and Brady E. Hamilton, PhD, both of the National Center for Health Statistics, say average age at first birth is important because it influences the total number of children a woman might have as well as the population's size and future growth. A mother's age is also a factor in birth outcomes such as birth weight and birth defects.
The study also shows:
• The average age at first birth has risen five years or more in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, while increasing less than 2.5 years in Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
• Since 1990, average age at first birth has increased across all racial and ethnic groups.
• Asian or Pacific Islander women had the oldest average age at first birth, at 28.5, and American Indian or Alaska Native women the youngest at 21.9.
• In 1970, average age at first birth was lowest in Arkansas at 20.2 and highest at 22.5 in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. In 2006, Mississippi had the lowest average age at 22.6 and Massachusetts the highest, 27.7.
• The average for non-Hispanic white women was higher at 26 than for the U.S. population as a whole, 25. The average for non-Hispanic black women was 22.7 and the average for Hispanic women was 23.1.
By Bill Hendrick
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
?2009 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved
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When is somebody going to jump upon women's choosing to delay pregnancy until later years, when the risk of complications is higher thus "raising health care costs for all of us"?
lollllllll.....
I think it good that American women are waiting to have children. Get some living of your own done before you start trying to raise kids. Hopefully, it will also lower then total number of births...something desperately needed to bring population growth under control. Just think of the strain all those little consumers put on the environment, health care, etc. 90% of what's wrong in the world today can be traced back to overpopulation.
Overpopulation can be traced to one main ingredient and that is lack of birth control in 3rd world countries. Look at India and Africa. Do you think God requires us to act RESPONSIBILY? How responsible is it when a mother cannot provide food for one, yet she has 5-6?
I think God gave us this 'coconut' in order to reason, to learn and to know. Where is the rationale when you promote the largesse of families and yet you cannot provide for them? Who suffers when that happens? The children invariably.
We have lost our ability to reason, to calculate and compute what is rationale thought. People should not have more children than they can afford. If you can only afford one, you should not have five. But yet we have some who say birth control is immoral, and against God's will. If everyone were millionaires that argument might fly. But when you have a great majority of the world's population flying under the weight of the economic system, and can't afford to provide for what they have; why are we encouraging them to have more babies?
And why are we not helping people become more self sustaining and reliant through education and training? When you get down to it, abstinence in light of arguing against birth control and abortion is much more RESPONSIBLE and HEALTHY and RATIONALE.
Sign me: Keep those emails coming.
Now we get the percentage of them who are married increased and we'll be doing something.