American women from nearly all walks of life are waiting longer to take the plunge into motherhood, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of babies born to first-time mothers who are at least 35 years old is more than nine times higher now than it was in the early 1970s. This increase comes even as the total number of births in the U.S. has been declining each year since 2007.
Women aged 35 to 39 account for most of the increase in what the CDC considers to be “older” first-time moms. For every 1,000 women in this age group, 11 babies were born to new mothers in 2012. Back in 1970, the figure was 1.7 babies per 1,000 new moms, according to the report released Friday.
The first-time birthrate among women aged 40 to 44 didn’t start to rise until the 1980s. In 1985, there were only 0.5 first-time births for every 1,000 women in this age group. By 2012, the corresponding figure was 2.3 per 1,000.