Birth Rates in America—Trends and Effects on Surrogacy
For an aspiring couple thinking about having children, you may be curious to know about the scientific facts based around birth rates in America.
How many women are having children right now and in what generation do they exist? Which is the most popular age group having children? Is it too late for your own family to consider having a child?
The answer to that last question is typically a resounding no provided that you do take some action in your earlier years.
This article will discuss birth rates in America, what they mean, and how older couples can still have a child of their own through surrogacy.
What Are Birth Rates In America?
Overall, a study showed that the birth rate currently in America is on a decline.
Essentially, fewer and fewer women are having children. Scientists believe this is likely due to the recession that many women and couples experienced earlier in their life.
Since financial security isn’t guaranteed even now, couples are waiting a few years to see if the economy changes before trying to have a baby.
Typically, birth rates are reflective of the current economic state in a country.
In America, particularly, couples don’t usually include a child into their home if they feel that the future is uncertain or not prosperous.
After all, it takes a lot of money to rear a child until they’ve reached the age of an adult.
Understandably, couples don’t want to make that financial commitment if they’re uncertain how the country is going to performing economically in the next few years.
Many women are also getting married later in life. The current average is 27 years old for marriage among women. This is the highest age that it has ever been since the inception of recording marriage ages.
Much attention has turned to millennials since they’ll be the next generation to focus on repopulating. Many millennials are choosing to wait to have children.
Instead, they prefer to focus on their careers and pay off debts before including a child into their life.
This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. With more financial freedom, parents are able to properly spend on their child and allow them to flourish.
That being said, The New York Times interviewed a group of millennials about their intentions with children. Most of those interviewed said that they intended to have far fewer children than those their parents had.
Yet even among that group, 34% were still unsure whether they wanted to have any children at all.
We know several couples in their early 30s including friends and relatives who have decided to wait- or have not decided whether children will be a part of their future at all.
Birth Rates
So, what are the birth rates in America?
Currently, the birth rate is 1.76 children per woman. This is a rate that many other countries have seen but they managed to thrive all the same.
The key goal is to ensure that there is still a large enough number of babies who can one day take over the workforce.
This is important because without as many people working, there are even fewer people who pay into the tax system in general, and overall contributing to the GDP of the United States.
Since social security is basically a large pot of money that everyone receives a little bit of after they retire, if there are fewer workers, there is also less money in retirement security provided by social security. As a result, retired individuals will receive less money to live on.
This may force retired individuals to work until they literally cannot anymore just in order to feed themselves or keep themselves housed—this is already shown to be happening in many parts of the US.
One of the biggest generations is baby boomers.
As their name suggests, this was a group of babies that were born from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s.
During that period, the birth rate peaked at 118.3 births per 1,000 women of the childbearing age. The childbearing age is set at 15 to 44 years old.
Since 1970, the birth rate had been pretty stable at around 60 to 70 per 1,000 women. The year 1990 and 2007 saw a peak in fertility at around 71 per 1,000 women. This group would make up the millennial generation.
However, since 2007, the fertility rate has declined. 2017, in particular, saw a birth rate of 60.3 births per 1,000 women.
The birth rate is also favoring women in the 30-34 age group. Just below that was the 25-29 age group. One interesting trend that has shown vast improvement is the teenager pregnancy group.
Because a lot of policy effort has been put into reducing the number of teenage pregnancies, the rate has decreased. This is good in terms of ensuring that babies are born into a stable environment.
However, with fewer babies being born even in this age group, it is also affecting the overall birth rate.
In regards to births stemming from different ethnicities in America, the data is as follows for 2017:
- All Races: 3,853,472
- White: 1,991,348
- Hispanic: 897,518
- Black: 560,560
- Asian: 249,214
- American Indian or Alaskan Native: 29,878
- Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 9,418
Besides healthy births according to their birth weights, there has also been an increase of late pre-term births.
Fertility clinics describe a late pre-term birth as being one that takes place later during the pregnancy but still before the full development period is complete. The increase was by 9.93%. The early pre-term rate, in which a baby is born extremely early in its development, remained at 2.75% from the previous study conducted in 2016. Low birth weight rates were also increased from 2016.
The year 2017 saw an 8.27% increase in low birth weight babies. Low birth weight is a baby that is born weighing less than 5 pounds and 8 ounces.
There is likely a relationship between pre-term babies and women who are having babies when they’re older.
More complications, birth defects, and low birth weight chances likely increase the longer that a woman waits to carry a child.
The Benefits and Problems Of Delaying Childbirth
There are many reasons why a couple might choose to wait to have children.
Clearly, the chief among those is financial. Parents might also choose to wait until they feel more settled in their relationship or in their career. There are some benefits of waiting to have children.
Being more settled in life means that parents are comfortable and experienced enough to be able to handle almost any emergency that life throws at them. They’ll be able to parent a baby just as well.
Older parents are also typically more financially secure and have developed good budgeting and financial habits.
However, there are a lot of disadvantages to waiting, too.
In particular, the longer that parents wait to have children, the more difficult it is. The female human body is at peak fertility during their mid to late 20s. After that, infertility rears its ugly head. Men’s fertility rate also declines with age.
One study has even found that the sperm count for men is also declining, in general, overall.
While there will likely be centuries past before the sperm decline truly becomes an issue with fertility and infertility, it does suggest some troubling news.
The reason behind the declining trend of sperm count in men is attributed to many factors.
Some of them may seem as harmless as lifestyle choices. Men may choose to perform actions or hobbies that injure their bodies in such a way that affects their sperm count. A fertility clinic will likely also suggest that a man lose weight if he is attempting to have a child and struggling with infertility. This is because being overweight and obese has also shown to affect the likelihood of a successful conception.
In addition, being obese can pass on certain genes that contribute to a low sperm count right from birth. While obesity, itself, is not passed down from father to son, the gene that can code for a low sperm count can be if the father is obese.
It can also be noted that women and men who wait until longer in life to find a mate, will also be affected by the difficulty of having children later in life.
With the statistics pointing to millennials waiting longer to settle down and get married, they also decrease the ability for their body clocks to produce the necessary ingredients to have a child (sperm and egg count).
It’s known that as women increase in age—the number of eggs that women have also decreased. Women are born with a certain number of eggs, and the number only decreases as they age.
Essentially, the longer that you wait to have a child, the less likely it is that you can conceive.
More than that, the less likely it is that you can carry the baby full-term or have a healthy child with a healthy birth.
Luckily, women who are older can still have a baby.
By utilizing the services of our surrogate agency in California, many intended parents can watch their child grow and develop into a healthy baby with a surrogate mother.
Endometriosis And Birth Rates
One condition that many women suffer from is endometriosis.
This condition typically causes a lot of pain in women. It occurs when the tissue that lines the uterus grows past the uterus.
In some cases, it can even grow into the fallopian tubes and cover the ovaries. This can make conception extremely difficult for women.
The problem with endometriosis is that it can have a large effect on infertility rates. Women who tend to wait to have children are at greater risk of developing this condition.
Since their older age already makes conceiving difficult, the presence of endometriosis can make becoming pregnant just that much more difficult.
In addition, women who have endometriosis also can sometimes have difficulties carrying the baby full-term. Pre-term babies are just a bit more common in women who have it.
Because pre-term babies can sometimes suffer from birth defects or even struggle to develop outside of the body, mothers should try to limit the chance of having a pre-term baby as much as possible.
That’s why women who have endometriosis should seek another avenue for pregnancy. Surrogacy, for example, is an excellent means of having a baby.
By choosing surrogacy in California, an intended mother with endometriosis can have someone else safely carry their baby.
This allows the mother to receive treatment for her endometriosis and reduce the amount of pain and discomfort that she experiences in life. Perhaps even more importantly, the baby has a greater chance of being born safely and to develop properly with a surrogate mother.
How Surrogates Can Help Birth Rates
Perhaps you’re a woman who wants to have a baby later in life.
You have every right to have a baby when you believe that you are ready. However, when making the choice to have a baby later in life, you also need to accept the possible complications that come along with waiting.
Despite these complications, you can still have a baby of your own. The answer is to use a surrogate agency in California such as ours—Made in the USA Surrogacy.
One of the most popular methods for surrogacy is in-vitro fertilization or IVF. At a fertility clinic, your health will first be examined to determine how healthy your eggs are.
Your partner’s sperm will also be examined to determine his sperm count and the health of that sperm. Usually, the fertility clinic will then suggest moving forward with the surrogate mother that our agency has introduced you to beforehand.
It should be mentioned that this surrogate mother has been carefully screened and given quite a few medical tests to ensure that her own health is at the level that we prefer.
We desire our surrogate mothers to be healthy and fully capable of developing your baby with as few problems as possible so that the entire experience is easy, simple, and wonderful.
After you find a surrogate, the in-vitro fertilization process can begin.
During IVF, the egg donor, or intended mother, has some of her eggs removed. Then the sperm donor, or the intended father, also has his sperm removed. Both of these are placed in a petri dish.
The in-vitro fertilization process then allows the sperm to easily find the eggs because the area is smaller. Women who are older and struggling with fertility because of endometriosis, especially, might be prompted to simply have the embryo placed within them.
However, this isn’t always recommended if you have endometriosis. Endometriosis can still make carrying the baby difficult. It can also sometimes worsen the pain in a woman.
One issue, for example, that may occur is a deviated placenta. Instead of resting high in the womb to help nourish the baby, it actually lowers and covers up the cervix. This can make giving birth through the traditional means impossible.
As a result, both the life of the baby and the mother is placed into question. IVF should be used with your surrogate.
Once in-vitro fertilization has finished, as in the sperm and egg have united and created an embryo, it is then placed within the surrogate’s womb.
After that, IVF is complete and the baby can start to develop within the surrogate.
Women who want to wait until they’re older to have a baby can find success when they find a surrogate with our agency. However, they need to take steps early.
As soon as another makes that decision to wait, or even if she’s thinking about having children in general, she should freeze her eggs.
In fact, the egg donor and the sperm donor can both benefit from freezing their eggs and sperm for later IVF purposes. Many couples have their eggs frozen for a number of years before being able to afford or be ready for the process of surrogacy.
By using a surrogate, women are able to have children no matter how old they are.
By freezing their eggs when they were younger, preferably at that fertile age in their mid-late 20s, they can guarantee that they have healthy eggs ready to be used.
This can make in-vitro fertilization easy and increase the chances of the embryo being successfully transplanted into the surrogate.
With older women using surrogacy in California, the birth rates can remain at a level that promotes replaceability rather than hinders it.
Currently, the American population has been primarily saved with a declining birth rate because of the presence of immigrants. They have been able to fill up the gaps that a lack of workforce stemming from childless parents creates.
A surrogate can help older couples have a healthy baby and ensure that the American birth rate remains strong. This allows older couples to become financially stable and ensure that their lives are ready for the addition of a child.
By providing a stable home, their child can thrive. Couples don’t have to choose between pursuing a career or having a baby when utilizing a surrogate.
Finding A Surrogate
For couples who are older, suffer from endometriosis, or are just interested in using a surrogate, it’s important to know where you can find a surrogate.
Our surrogacy agency can provide surrogates who are screened and have medical records on hand. They have either been surrogates before or may be first time surrogates who have children of their own.
Their success in carrying children is usually quite high as well.
Our surrogate agency wants to make the process simple. You’ve already struggled enough to conceive.
We aim to remove the emotional turmoil from the process and instead help you find a surrogate that is perfect for your family.
In fact, it’s not uncommon for some of our surrogates to become lasting friends with their intended parents.
For those who want a reliable surrogate agency with a focus on providing support for intended parents, we can provide that experience.
Final Thoughts
Birth rates in the county of America have been steadily declining over the decades.
While the baby boomer generation saw a huge spike in the birth of children, since then it has typically stuck around 60-70 births per 1,000 women. Most recently, however, as millennials have taken over the primary age for pregnancies.
They’ve decided to wait longer on having children in pursuit of their careers and in reducing the amount of debt that they possess.
While waiting isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does affect how fertile the couple is.
As women grow older without having a baby, they also increase their chances of developing endometriosis, or many other issues of infertility.
While many couples may believe that they’ve waited too long to have children, that isn’t the case. Surrogates at our agency are standing by to help you achieve your dreams of having a baby. We provide healthy and eager surrogates who want to make that dream come true.
By using our surrogates, intended parents can fill their home with the laughter of their child without sacrificing either their careers or financial stability. Contact our surrogacy agency today at 916-226-4342, or fill out our parent inquiry form.
