The short post-pandemic uptick in U.S. births may be over, with 2023 numbers showing a decline in births.

According to provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just under 3.6 million babies were born in America in 2023, about 76,000 fewer than the year before.

It's also the lowest number of births recorded in the United States since 1979.

De...

Advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will weigh the possibilities and parameters of experiments with artificial wombs for premature human babies.

Scientists have already had some success with the concept in animals.

During a two-day

Births to teen moms in the United States reached a historic low in 2022, dropping 3% from the previous year, a new government report shows.

Teenage births fell among both younger teens, ages 15 to 17, and older teens, aged 18 to 19, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

With ...

"Baby on Board"warning stickers apply even when there's a mom-to-be in the vehicle, a new study argues.

Pregnant women involved in traffic collisions are at heightened risk of potentially serious birth complications, even if the wreck only involves minor injuries, researchers report.

These complications can include dislodgement of the placenta, very heavy bleeding, and the need for ...

When birth rates fall in the United States, experts try to figure out what's happening.

The fertility rate is at its lowest since the 1970s -- 1.71 per woman, according to a new study.

But it's not that young people today don't want children, new research suggests. In fact,...

Babies born via cesarean section may not mount as strong an immune response after some childhood vaccines compared to babies delivered vaginally, researchers suggest.

Antibody levels can be checked in blood or saliva, and babies born vaginally had higher levels of antibodies in their saliva to pneumonia shots at one year and meningococcal shots at 18 months, a new study showed.

But ...

U.S. stillbirth rates still need to be tackled at the local, state and national levels because efforts to reduce the risk have stalled, new research claims.

Racial disparities remain as well, with Black women more likely to experience stillbirth (the loss of a baby before or during delivery) than white women.

"Over the last 40 years, we have reduced certain risk factors for stillbi...

When preteen children or very young teenagers become pregnant, they face higher rates of complications and a greater risk of winding up in the intensive care unit than older teens do, a new study finds.

The question about what happens when a young girl goes through pregnancy and delivery takes on more relevance after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and subsequent abo...

Stillbirth is heartbreaking tragedy for parents, but exactly what raises the risk of it remains elusive.

Certain health conditions in a pregnant woman can be a factor, but new research came up with a surprising finding: Stillbirth risk appears to be inherited through male members of the family on eithe...

When doctors deliver a healthy newborn, it's common to wait about a minute to clamp and cut the umbilical cord, giving the baby the benefits of extra cord blood as it begins its life outside the womb.

The same is not true for babies born limp, with minimal breathing. The go-to plan for those babies, known as "non-vigorous" infants, has been to clamp the cord quickly and work on stabilizin...

Stories about their difficult birth or their parents' fertility challenges can give adult children a more grateful, upbeat attitude towards their lives, British researchers suggest.

They studied the messages as well as how they were delivered, interviewing people about the stor...

It may not qualify as a baby boom, but U.S. births were up in 2021 for the first time in years.

New federal government data show a 1% increase in births from 2020, with more than 3.6 million births last year. It was the first increase in seven years.

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