We've kinda sorta maybe possibly been teetering toward civilizational-collapse levels of fertility in the United States over the past few decades, so this is, all things considered, very welcome news:

For the first time in seven years, birth rates in the United States increased – albeit by only 1%.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics revealed there were 3,659,289 babies born in 2021, the first rise in births since 2014. Past years had seen a steady birth decrease of 2%, according to ABC News.

As the New York Post so delicately put it:

Couples seemed to have been busy during the pandemic.

Okay, that's uncalled for, even if it's true.

We should stress that we're really kind of digging ourselves out of a hole here:

The data comes after births dropped 4% — dubbed the "baby bust" — in 2020 during the pandemic. Combined with COVID-19 deaths, it caused a decrease in population

Of course, claiming that the "baby bust" took place "during the pandemic" is somewhat misleading. Not to go on and on about it, but the majority of the decline in births during 2020 would have had to arise in 2019. A woman only had until March that year to start a pregnancy that would become a 2020 birth—and COVID didn't really start being a major crisis here until that month.

The demographic shift in births was also notable:

Mothers, ages 35 to 44, gave birth the most of any age group — with a nearly 3% increase — which comes after a trend of women hesitant about having children.

It's true that many women are "hesitant about having children" these days—but apparently they're less hesitant about it as they near middle age and many of them realize they do want children after all. Let's hope word gets out to the younger cohorts that having babies is actually really great.

Keep havin' them babies, y'all!

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