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Americans Aren't Kidding Around In Making Babies

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 16, 2008

Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years.

"Americans like children. We are the only people who respond to prosperity by saying, 'Let's have another kid,'" said Nan Marie Astone, associate professor of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins University.

An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of childbirths across the United States was the highest since 1961, near the end of the baby boom.

Nation/World, Page 5

•Experts think there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.

•To many, the increase in births is good news. The U.S. fertility rate - the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime - reached 2.1. That's the "magic number" required for a population to replace itself.

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