Here’s some news we found at The Examiner about pregnancy rates in the United States.
In a report published online in the December 21, 2009 edition of Pediatrics more than 4.3 million U.S. births were recorded for the year 2007, a 1 percent increase over the previous year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teen births are up for the second year in a row, births among unmarried women are rising, and the infant mortality rate remains higher than in many other countries, including France and Japan.
Highlights of the report include:
* The teen birth rate rose about 1 percent, to 42.5 births per 1000 teenagers
* Births to women aged 15 to 44 went up 1 percent, to 69.5 births per 1000 women
* Births to unmarried women in all ethnic/racial groups rose about 1 percent, to 39.7 percent
* Cesarean deliveries rose 2 percent, to 31.8 percent of all births
* The rate of multiple births did not change
* Pre-term births declined 1 percent, to 12.7 percent
* The rate of low-birth-weight infants fell to 8.2 percent
* The infant mortality rate was 6.77 deaths per 1000 live births
* Life expectancy at birth reached a record high of 77.9 years
* Death rates for children age 1 to 19 fell 2.5 percent
* Leading causes of death to children and adolescents were unintentional injuries and homicide
