Census data from 2016 shows that for the first time, American women in their 30s had more babies than women in their 20s. The peak demographic for childbirth is now 30-34. This might be the first time in human history that this has been true. Overall, 3.9 million babies were born in the US last year.
The birth rate for teenage girls in the US has fallen 51 percent since 2007; it is now 20.3 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19.
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4 comments:
Get ready for the trend to tick back the other way for a bit, given the gutting of Planned Parenthood.
Very bad news. Everyone knows older eggs are of lower quality.
@pithom
Uh huh.
Go peddle your eugenics somewhere else. Preferably the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
I guess it depends what you mean by "lower quality."
Nature takes care of a lot of this stuff without any interference from human science. 10-20% of "known" pregnancies end in miscarriage, 80% of those happen in the first 12 weeks (those are just the first set of credible looking statistics that I pulled off the internet, feel free to look up your own numbers. Miscarriage rates increase with female age after 30, no doubt because of the "lower quality" of the woman's eggs.
That said, for successful pregnancy carried to term... really there is not a lot of "lower quality" issue with the resultant offspring. Yes, yes, chromosomal abnormalities are more frequent as a woman's eggs age. But really it's not quite the game of roulette you are suggesting, @pithom. And, the case of chromosomal abnormalities aside, what is your criteria for "lower quality"?
--Katya
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