U.S. Women Wait Longer for 1st Child

The average age at which American women are having their first child has climbed to an all-time high of 25.1, the government said Wednesday.

The rise reflects a drop in teen births and an increase in the number of women who are putting off motherhood until their 30s and 40s.

The age of first-time American mothers has increased steadily during the last three decades, from an average of 21.4 in 1970.

The latest figure, for 2002, was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Women contemplating motherhood “are more likely to wait,” said CDC statistician Joyce Martin.

“It’s good overall for infant health, because birth outcomes for teen moms are problematic.”

The teen birthrate dropped 30% in the last decade, to 43 births per 1,000 women in 2002. The CDC also said births among women ages 20 to 24 had dropped to 104 per 1,000 women, from a high of 109.7 in 2000.

The government attributed the drop in the teen birthrate to health campaigns by public and private agencies that discourage teen pregnancies and promote abstinence.

The overall birthrates among women ages 35 to 39 (41 births per 1,000 women) and those ages 40 to 44 (8 per 1,000) were at the highest levels for those age groups in three decades.

“It’s certainly reflective of continued postponement of childbearing,” Martin said.

“But there are some health consequences -- older moms are at risk of multiple births, which have a risk of poorer outcomes” such as low birth weight.

The rate of triplets and larger multiple births dropped to 184 per 100,000 deliveries in 2002 from 185.6 in 2001. That is the third decline in the last four years.

Such births climbed more than 400% between 1980 and 1998, largely because of fertility treatments that raise the odds of multiple births.