The number of births in the United States is set to decline by 1% in 2025, according to provisional data released on Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
There were 3,606,400 live births last year, down from 3,628,934 in 2024, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. informed.
The general fertility rate fell 1% to 53.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44, continuing a long-term decline of 23% since the 2007 peak.
The most notable decline came in teenage births, which reached another historic low. The birth rate for women aged 15-19 fell 7% to 11.7 births per 1,000 – the lowest rate ever recorded.
Overall, 125,933 babies were born to teen mothers in 2025, an 8% decline from the previous year.
Rates have declined for both younger teens (ages 15–17) and older teens (ages 18–19), with both age groups setting new record lows.
The provisional figures are based on almost all (99.95%) birth records received and processed by CDC in early February. There are not expected to be any significant changes to the final 2025 numbers expected later this year.
The report reflects an ongoing gradual decline in US births that has continued for the past two decades, interrupted only by a modest increase in 2024.
Experts continue to link the broader trend to factors such as abortion, biotechnology, economic pressures, and changes in social and political priorities.
“There is no single driver of the decline in birth rates, and yet what is undeniable is that because of anti-life technologies, economic pressures, bad policies, and cultural movements like girl-boss feminism, more and more women are delaying or abandoning childbearing,” said Emma Waters, senior policy analyst in the Center for Technology and the Human Person at The Heritage Foundation.
She said, “Women without college degrees are increasingly choosing to avoid children because it makes it seem like getting married and having children is a luxury or elite venture, and sadly, our elite class is only perpetuating this lie.”
Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, also expressed concern about the broader trend.
“The continued decline in the birth rate in the United States is very worrying,” Mosher said. “We are going the way of old Europe, that is, entering an extended period of low fertility that puts us, as a country, in danger of entering an irreversible demographic decline.”
They pointed to several possible factors, including “increasingly widespread use of the abortion pill” and the high number of abortions reported by Planned Parenthood.
according to group 2024-2025 Annual ReportPlanned Parenthood plans an all-time high of 434,450 abortions in 2023–2024.
record number of abortions 8% increaseOr about 32,000 more abortions than last year. The numbers do not include telehealth chemical abortions, which account for a growing percentage of all abortions, especially for teenagers and young adults.
a fresh reportPublished in the journal JAMA Health Forum, found that young adults (ages 18-24) order abortion pills at much higher rates than older adults and more teens order abortion pills in states with parental notification or consent laws regarding abortion.
The report found that “there is a growing demand among adolescents and young adults to work in legally restricted environments.”
Mosher also blamed stricter immigration enforcement for the decline in births.
“Another part of the decline is certainly related to the now closed border and the crackdown on ‘birth tourism,’ which means fewer and fewer babies (of foreign-born parents) are being born in the US,” he said. “Ten percent of all births in the US in 2024 were to illegal aliens, this percentage is undoubtedly lower in 2025 as their numbers are reduced by deportation and immigration.”
The CDC also found that the cesarean delivery rate increased slightly to 32.5%, the highest since 2013, while the premature birth rate remained stable at 10.41%. A slight decline of 1% was seen in early preterm births (less than 34 weeks).
