U.S.births keep going down: How having babies and being parents is changing in 2023.

In 2023, the United States saw fewer babies being born, continuing a long trend of declining birth rates. Only about 3.6 million babies were born, which is the smallest number since 1979.

The birth rate had been falling for more than ten years before COVID-19, and even though it went up a little after the pandemic, it's now going down again. Experts thought the increase was because people who waited during the start of the pandemic were now having babies, but that seems to have stopped.

Women under 40 are having fewer babies, but the number of births for women in their 40s hasn't changed much. This was unexpected and means there might be more reasons why women are having fewer children.

The report also wonders how the 2022 Supreme Court decision about abortion might change the number of births, but so far, it hasn't led to more babies being born nationally. For teenagers, especially those between 15 to 17 years old, the birth rate hasn't gone down much recently, which might be due to several reasons.

The report found that fewer babies are being born to women of almost all races and ethnicities. It tells us that many couples want more children but find things like the cost of child care and housing are big obstacles.