PEDIATRICS Vol. 5 No. 1 January 1950, pp. 163-165
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PUBLIC HEALTH, NURSING AND MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK

RECENT TRENDS IN BIRTH RATES IN RELATION TO AGE AND BIRTH ORDER

Editors: MYRON E. WEGMAN, M.D..

PEDIATRICIANS early felt the effect of the tremendous increase in births in recent years. It comes as no surprise to them to see that a great portion of this increase was associated with young mothers and primiparae who presented a more difficult and timeconsuming task in relation to health supervision.

Figure 1 demonstrates that the increased total birth rate has by no means been due to young mothers alone although the major rise has been in mothers under 35 years of age. The rates for all age groups over 20 showed steady declines from the beginning of this chart, 1920, probably as part of a long time trend, and all under 30 reached their [See FIGURE 1. in Source PDF] lowest point toward the end of the great depression in 1933. The older age groups showed an upturn in successively later years although none over 30 reached the 1920 level.

Between 1940 and 1947 the rates for women 15 to 29 years of age fluctuated more extremely than did those for the older women. As might be expected, economic and psychologic factors related to the war had a more immediate effect on fertility among women under 30 years of age, and the birth rates in these age groups show a sudden upswing from 1940 to 1943.