America’s new ‘baby boomlet’

“In need of some good news”? said Michele Johansen and Lexie Tigre in Examiner.com. The U.S. has set a new birth record, with an “astounding” 4.3 million babies born last year. But, “unless you’re Nadya Suleman” or Angelina Jolie, it’s unlikely you’re having more than two kids. And this “baby boomlet” will probably be much shorter than the baby boom, thanks to the sour economy.

There’s some positive data in the new birth numbers, but some “discouraging news,” too, said Shari Roan in the Los Angeles Times online. The number of low-birth-weight and preterm babies dropped, after a steady 20-year rise, but “on a less optimistic note,” the number of teen births was up, as was the already “needlessly high” C-section rate.

The most interesting number is the 40 percent of babies born to unmarried mothers, said Alan Stewart Carl in Donklephant. That will strike some as “disturbing.” But surely many of those babies will be raised by two adults who chose not to get married, or who can’t due to sexual orientation. How the kids are raised is the important question, and one the “raw numbers” don’t answer.

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