
Birth Data

In the United States, State laws require birth certificates to be completed for all births, and Federal law mandates national collection and publication of births and other vital statistics data. The National Vital Statistics System, the Federal compilation of this data, is the result of the cooperation between the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the States to provide access to statistical information from birth certificates.
Standard forms for the collection of the data and model procedures for the uniform registration of the events are developed and recommended for State use through cooperative activities of the States and NCHS. Material is available to assist persons in completing the death certificate. NCHS shares the costs incurred by the States in providing vital statistics data for national use.
Data for United States in 2021
- Number of births: 3,664,292
- Birth rate: 11.0 per 1,000 population
- Fertility rate: 56.3 births per 1000 women aged 15-44 years
- Prenatal care initiated in the 1st trimester: 78.3%
- Percent born preterm (less than 37 completed weeks of gestation): 10.49%
- Percent cesarean delivery: 32.1%
- Medicaid as source of payment for the delivery: 41.0%
Webinar
Publications
- Infant Mortality in the United States, 2021: Data From the Period Linked Birth/Infant Death File [PDF – 634] (9/12/2023)
- Births in the United States, 2022 (8/23/2023)
- Births: Provisional Data for 2022 [PDF – 485 KB] (6/1/2023)
- Provisional Estimates for Selected Maternal and Infant Outcomes by Month, 2019-2022 (6/1/2023)
- Trends and Characteristics in Prepregnancy Diabetes: United States, 2016-2021 [PDF – 431] (5/31/2023)
- Changes in Prenatal Care Utilization: United States, 2019–2021 [PDF – 245 KB] (5/4/2023)
- Trends and Characteristics in Maternal Hepatitis C Virus Infection Rates During Pregnancy: United States, 2016–2021 [PDF – 361 KB] (4/11/2023)
- Birth: Final Data for 2021 [PDF – 1 MB] (1/31/2023)
- Changes in Twin Births in the United States, 2019–2021 [PDF – 392 KB] (12/7/2022)
- Changes in Home Births by Race and Hispanic Origin and State of Residence of Mother: United States, 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 [PDF ‐ 1,154 KB] (11/17/2022)
- Births in the United States, 2021 (8/29/2022)
- Changes in Births by Month: United States, 2021 [PDF – 692 KB] (7/19/2022)
Public Use Data
- 2021 Birth Data Files (8/29/2022)