Births decreased in first half of 2021, likely linked to pandemic: CDC
ABC News
Births continued to decline in the U.S. in 2021 due to the COVID pandemic, according to a new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of births declined in the U.S. in 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic played a role, according to a new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday.
Researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics -- a branch of the CDC -- compared provisional data from the first half of 2021 to final data from the first half of 2020.
They found there were 1.74 million births between January and June of last year, a 2% decline from the 1.78 million births that occurred over the same period in 2020.
The drop was largely driven by the decline in births for the month of January, with 304,000 babies born in January 2020 compared to nearly 277,000 in January 2021 -- a 9% decrease.
