What is the average age that women start having children in the U.S.?
Advanced maternal age
This process is not restricted to Europe. Asia, Japan and the United States are all seeing average age at first birth on the rise, and increasingly the process is spreading to countries in the developing world like China, Turkey and Iran. In the U.S., the average age of first childbirth was 26.6 in 2016.[3]
Teenage pregnancy in the United States
In 2014, 249,078 babies were born to women aged 15 – 19 years old. This is a birth rate of 24.2 per 1000 women. However, most adolescents who give birth are over the age of 18. In 2014, 73% of teen births occurred in 18-19 year olds. Pregnancies are much less common among girls younger than 15. In 2008, 6.6 pregnancies occurred per 1,000 teens aged 13–14. In other words, fewer than 1% of teens younger than 15 became pregnant in 2008. Pregnant teenagers tend to gain less weight than older mothers, due to the fact that they are still growing and fighting for nutrients with the baby during the pregnancy.