Pregnancy

Demographics

Most American women experience pregnancy at some point in their lives. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that approximately 10 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 experience pregnancy each year. Eighty percent of women have children by age 44 (women who became pregnant but experienced pregnancy loss are not included in this number). On average, women in the contemporary United States birth 2 children, down from 3.5 in the 1950s but increasing from the low of 1.8 in the 1970s. In 2000, an estimated 6,401,000 pregnancies resulted in 4.06 million live births, 1.31 million induced abortions, and 1.03 million fetal losses. It is estimated that half of all pregnancies are unintended and half of those pregnancies occur despite contraceptive use.

Despite the historical constancy of a woman's likelihood to become pregnant at some point in her life, modern American women experience pregnancy quite differently than our great-grandmothers. Six trends mark the shifts of the last century: Pregnancy is safer than ever, women are delaying childbirth, teen pregnancy is declining, abortion rates are declining, women are increasingly bearing and raising children outside of marriage, and women are bearing fewer children. Access to nutritious food, clean living conditions, and overall healthier living have helped women experience safer and healthier pregnancies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries than in previous generations. Less than .01 percent of women die because of pregnancy or childbirth-related complications in the 21st-century United States, compared with about .07 percent in 1950. The death rate increases as women age. Maternal mortality remains a significant problem worldwide. Twenty percent of pregnant women in the United States are without prenatal care in a given year (down from 30 percent in 1990). Ninety-nine percent of American women give birth in a hospital setting, but home births and freestanding birth clinics are regaining popularity as some women challenge the medicalization of pregnancy. In 2004, 29 percent of births took place by cesarean section.

On average, women in the United States bear their first child at the age of 25 (up from age 21 in 1970). The median age for women's first birth is 27. In part, the average age has increased because of a decline in teen pregnancies (from 37 percent to 25 percent of annual pregnancies) and in part because women over 30 now account for 22 percent of all births, up from 7 percent in 1960. The emergence of comprehensive sexuality education and accessible, reliable birth control have lowered the teen pregnancy rate in the United States. Similarly, the abortion rate has declined as women have experienced fewer unwanted pregnancies.

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