Is economic crunch the best birth control?

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDNov 22 2011

Experts feel it is the economic strain that is responsible for the U.S. birth rate decline that has been consistently falling for the third consecutive year.

According to the federal report released Thursday declines in the birth rate has been seen for all races and most age groups. Teens and women in their early 20s had the most dramatic dip, to the lowest rates since record-keeping began in the 1940s. Also, the rate of cesarean sections stopped going up for the first time since 1996.

U.S. births hit an all-time high in 2007, at more than 4.3 million. Over the next two years, the number dropped to about 4.2 million and then about 4.1 million. Last year, it was down to just over 4 million, according to the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For teens, birth rates dropped 9 percent from 2009. For women in their early 20s, they fell 6 percent. For unmarried mothers, the drop was 4 percent.

Experts felt it was the economy that is setting the trend in 2008 and 2009 as women put off having children. With the 2010 figures, suspicion has turned into certainty. “I don't think there's any doubt now that it was the recession. It could not be anything else,” said Carl Haub, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. He was not involved in the new report.

There was a continued decline in the percentage of premature births at less than 37 weeks. And birth rates fell in younger women but rose a little in women 40 and older, who face a closing biological window for having children and may be more worried about that than the economy.

The total fertility rate that tells how many children a woman can be expected to have if current birth rates continue. That figure was 1.9 children last year. In most years, it's more like 2.1. More striking was the change in the fertility rate for Hispanic women. The rate plummeted to 2.4 from nearly 3 children just a few years ago.

Additionally Caesarean section rates rose steadily from nearly 21 percent in 1996 to 32.9 percent in 2009, but dropped slightly to 32.8 last year. Cesarean deliveries are sometimes medically necessary. But health officials have worried that many C-sections are done out of convenience or unwarranted caution, and in the 1980s set a goal of keeping the national rate at 15 percent.