According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Births: Final Data for 2020, which is the most recent data available, 3,613,647 births were registered in the United States. That was down 4% from 2019. It also was 56.0 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. The information came from birth certificates.
The objective of the study: “This report presents 2020 data on U.S. births according to a wide variety of characteristics. Trends in fertility patterns and maternal and infant characteristics are described and interpreted.”
The report contains a large amount of information. This includes the age of the mother, race, birth order and “total fertility rate,” which was 1,641.0 births per 1,000 women. The information gathered also included whether the mothers smoked, the source of payment for delivery (primarily Medicaid or private insurance), birth rate, whether children were delivered prematurely and if mothers were single or married.
Among the good news was data about smoking. “Of the women who gave birth in 2020, 5.5% reported smoking cigarettes (tobacco only) at some point while pregnant, an 8% decline from 2019 (6.0%).”
One part of the analysis included births by state. These, in turn, were divided by the race of the mother: white, Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian and Hispanic. Of the 3,613,647 births, the largest number of mothers were white (1,843,432), followed by Hispanic (866,713) and Black (529,811).
The state with the fewest births was Vermont at 5,133. The state with the most births was California. Its 420,259 was 12% of the national total.
These are the 20 states with the fewest births in 2020:
- Vermont (5,133)
- Wyoming (6,128)
- District of Columbia (8,874)
- Alaska (9,469)
- North Dakota (10,059)
- Rhode Island (10,101)
- Delaware (10,392)
- Montana (10,791)
- South Dakota (10,960)
- Maine (11,539)
- New Hampshire (11,791)
- Hawaii (15,785)
- West Virginia (17,323)
- Idaho (21,533)
- New Mexico (21,903)
- Nebraska (24,291)
- Connecticut (33,460)
- Nevada (33,653)
- Kansas (34,376)
- Arkansas (35,251)
Click here to see America’s most popular baby girl names in 2020.
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