CDC: U.S. General Fertility Rate Slightly Decreased in 2022

MONDAY, June 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) — The general fertility rate was 56.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years in 2022, which was slightly lower than 2021, according to a June Vital Statistics Rapid Release report, a publication from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Brady E. Hamilton, Ph.D., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, and colleagues presented provisional 2022 data on U.S. births and made comparisons to final 2021 data.

The researchers found that for 2022, the provisional number of births was 3,661,220, which marked a nonsignificant decline from 2021. The general fertility rate was 56.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, which marked a less than 1 percent reduction from 2021. In 2022, the total fertility rate was 1,665.0 births per 1,000 women, which was unchanged from 2021. For women aged 15 to 24 and 30 to 34 years, birth rates declined, while they increased for women aged 25 to 29 and 35 to 49 years and were unchanged for those aged 10 to 14 years. For teenagers aged 15 to 19 years, the birth rate decreased by 3 percent in 2022 to 13.5 births per 1,000 females; decreases were seen in rates for both younger and older teenagers (aged 15 to 17 and 18 to 19 years, respectively).

The cesarean delivery rate increased from 32.1 percent in 2021 to 32.2 percent in 2022; the low-risk cesarean delivery rate remained unchanged at 26.3 percent. There was a 1 percent decrease observed in the preterm birth rate to 10.38 percent in 2022.