Women in the United States are less likely to have babies than ever before, but key figures in the Trump administration seem keen on changing that – even as federal programs focused on reproductive health face significant upheaval.
About 3.6 million babies were born in the US in 2024, according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fertility rate last year – 54.6 births for every 1,000 women of reproductive age – increased less than 1% from the record low in 2023, hovering well below rates from years earlier.
The US fertility rate has been trending down for decades, with a particularly steep dip after the Great Recession of 2008. An uptick in 2021 spurred theories about a Covid-19 “baby bump,” but the rate quickly returned to its more consistent downward pattern.
Experts say that year-to-year movement in the fertility rate tends to be incremental and that a single year of change – such as this year’s slight increase – does not indicate a shift in the long-term trend.
But the latest provisional data, published Wednesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, also shows that births continue to shift to older mothers. The fertility rate was highest among women in their early 30s in 2024, with more than 95 births for every 1,000 women ages 30 to 34.
Meanwhile, teen births and births among women in their early 20s declined to record lows last year, the report shows. There were less than 13 births for every 1,000 teen girls, a 3% drop from 2023. And the birth rate for women ages 20 to 24 – about 56 births for every 1,000 women – was just slightly above the rate for women in their late 30s.
The small increase in births last year – about 27,000 more than in 2023 – was driven by higher birth rates among Asian and Hispanic women, while rates decreased among Black, White and American Indian women.
Experts say there are many reasons why women may be waiting to have kids or not having them all, with decisions shaped by socioeconomic circumstances and people’s broader experiences with reproductive health.
The US is facing a maternal health care crisis, with more than a third of the country in a maternal health care desert and a strikingly high rate of maternal death, especially among Black women. Research also suggests that abortion bans in the US are exacerbating existing health disparities as births increase in high-risk populations and infant mortality rises disproportionately.
Coming amid the fertility slump is a rise in pronatalist rhetoric by some officials surrounding President Trump, but those pushing for a higher birth rate in the US have not laid out a clear plan for how to support women, babies and families.
Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, has said the low birth rate keeps him up at night.
“Humanity is dying,” he told Fox News last month.
Vice President JD Vance supported anti-abortion activists at a March for Life rally in January, days after being sworn in, and made his goal clear.
“Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another as a core part of living in a society,” he said. “So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America.”
And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a memo in March promising more funding to places with higher birth rates.
In 2023, Trump said he wanted “a baby boom” in the US. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he called himself the “father of IVF,” and he signed an executive order in February to develop policy recommendations to expand access to and affordability of in vitro fertilization.
But federal programs focused on reproductive health have taken a heavy hit as Musk’s department leads sweeping changes in the federal government.
Two-thirds of the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health has been cut, according to a source who was part of the division and requested anonymity because of fear of retaliation. Programs focused on abortion surveillance, contraception guidelines, IVF surveillance, pregnancy risk assessment and more were among those that lost entire teams, with no plans to maintain them.
The US Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that maternal and reproductive health programs will continue under the new Administration for a Healthy America but offered no further details.