Women Are Having Their First Child at an Older Age

American women are having their first babies at an older age. The median age of U.S. women giving birth has increased from 27 to 30, the highest to date.

Laura Nelson waited until she was 34 to have her first child. Most of her close friends did, too. That’s a big jump from the median age of 21 back in 1970, when the U.S. government started tracking ages of new moms. 

According to Census Bureau data, many women in the U.S. are waiting to have their first child. The agency says the trend has occurred across all states and all racial and ethnic categories, increasing the median age to 30, the highest on record.

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One of the main reasons for the increased age is a drop in the number of teen births. A Centers for Disease Contral and Prevention study previously cited that the number of teenagers giving birth to their first child dropped from 23 percent to 13 percent over a 20-year span.  

Bill Albert, chief program officer with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, calls the decrease among teenagers “one of the nation’s great unheralded success stories of the past two decades.”

He said the reason is because of “less sex and more contraception.” The combination of sex education programs and various forms of long-acting birth control have contributed to the low rate among teenagers.

Nelson, who is planning on having another child in a year or two (her baby is 18 months), has found that she and her close friends are spending more time focusing on their careers. “My mom had me when she was 24,” she said. “I wasn’t even married then, and the thought of taking care of an infant was out of the question at that time.”

Her close friend, Meghan Rudd, waited until her early 30s to try to get pregnant. “I got married at age 30,” she said. “My husband and I wanted to experience marriage, save money for a home, and concentrate on our jobs.” She just turned 35 and had her first child at age 34.

She didn’t want to wait until her 40s because she has a few friends and coworkers who are having a harder time getting pregnant at that age. By definition, the term advanced maternal age refers to women giving birth at 35 or older.

U.S. women who wait until their mid-30s and later to have their first child often have fertility problems. The chances of miscarriage increase dramatically for women who wait until their 40s. 

Still, the Census Bureau says that first birth rates for women ages 35 to 39 rose 67 percent. For women ages 40 to 44, the increase was 13 percent.

For women aged 29 or younger, however, particularly those younger than age 24, first birth rates have dramatically declined during recent decades. 

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