It’s a baby slump

US births at lowest point in 30 years

US birth rates declined last year for women in their teens, 20s and — surprisingly — 30s, leading to the fewest babies in 30 years, according to a government report released Thursday.

The provisional report, based on a review of more than 99 percent of the birth certificates filed nationwide, counted 3.853 million births last year. That’s the lowest tally since 1987.

Births have been declining since 2014, but 2017 saw the greatest year-toyear drop — about 92,000 less than the previous year.

That was surprising, because baby booms often parallel economic booms, and last year was a period of low unemployment.

One factor may be shifting attitudes about motherhood among millennials, who are in their prime child-bearing years right now. They may be more inclined to put off childbearing or have fewer children, researchers said.

Another may be changes in the immigrant population, which generates nearly a quarter of the ba- bies born in the United States each year. Asians are making up a larger proportion of immigrants, and they have typically had fewer children than other immigrant groups.

Also, use of IUDs and other long-acting forms of contraception has been increasing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey also found:

The rate of births to women ages 15 to 44, known as the general fertility rate, sank to a record low of about 60 per 1,000.

Women in their early 40s were the only group with higher birth rates in 2017, up 2 percent from the year before. That rate has been rising since the 1980s.

Birth rates for teens continued to nose-dive, as they have since the early 1990s. In 2017, they dropped 7 percent from the year before.

Rates for women in their 20s fell 4 percent and hit record lows.

Birth rates dipped 2 percent for women ages 30 to 34 and 1 percent for women 35 to 39.