Number of babies born in the US reaches record levels

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
The number of babies born in the US reached record levels in 2007, outpacing the birthrate from the late 1950s. Official figures released today showed that 4,317,119 babies were born there in 2007, the highest number on record.
Beneath the bald figures, the statistics, culled from birth certificates, hinted at some cultural shifts in the US as the nation enjoyed the final months before the economic crisis set in. Unmarried mothers accounted for almost 40% of births, with three-quarters of them over the age of 20. Teen births, after declining for much of the past 15 years, rose for the second year, as did births across all ages and races.
The figures reported by the National Centre for Health Statistics, part of the federal government's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, confirmed the increase in births across most groups that had been evident in 2006.
The average American woman has 2.1 children in her lifetime, the most since the early 1970s, with women of Hispanic origin having the highest rate - almost three children per woman.
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