No COVID Baby Boom: Massachusetts Saw Nearly 10% Decline In December Births, Data Shows
BOSTON (CBS) -- When the coronavirus pandemic prompted stay-at-home orders last March and kept people inside, there were plenty of jokes about how a surge in pregnancies was sure to follow. But as CBS News reported this week, the COVID baby boom is looking more like a baby bust.
Provisional birth count data from 29 state health departments show about a 7.3% decline in births nationwide in December 2020, nine months after the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic. The decline was even steeper in Massachusetts, with data obtained by CBS News showing a 9.5% decline in December births compared to the previous year.
In total there were 4,948 December births reported in Massachusetts, compared to 5,468 in December 2019.
For the entire year of 2020, states reported on average about a 4.4% decline in births compared to 2019. According to CBS News, every state reported fewer births except New Hampshire, which saw just four more births in 2020 compared to the prior year.
New Hampshire did see an almost 8.5% drop in December births for 2020.
When the pandemic first took hold in the U.S., many joked that widespread lockdowns would spark a "baby boom" and sky-high birth rates. But nearly a year later, the opposite appears to be true, @byKateSmith reports.https://t.co/87ri16xn6a pic.twitter.com/egdLGEptzv
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 2, 2021
One expert said that while birth rates have been on the decline, this was the biggest drop he's seen in decades.
"The scale of this is really large," Phil Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist, told CBS News. "Regardless of whether you think it's good or bad to have a lot of children, the fact that we're suddenly having fewer means things are not going well for a lot of people."
Click here to see the full report from CBS News.