By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer

A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has found that the average age of women giving birth for the first time rose from age 21 in 1970 to 25 in 2006.

“In 1970, just 1 percent, or one in 100, births were to women 35 and over,” said study author T.J. Mathews, a demographer with the NCHS, to ABC News. “In 2006, it was one in 12 births. It’s a dramatic transition.”

The trend toward later motherhood, which researchers believe is due to the pursuit of education and careers earlier in life, crosses all racial and ethinc groups. Asian and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. have the highest average age of 28.5 years while Native Americans have the youngest at 21.9 years. The average age for first births in non-Hispanic white women is 26 years, 22.7 years for black women and 23.1 years for Hispanic women.

Geography also seems to play a role in the age at which women start their families. For instance, women in Washington DC, Massachusetts and New Hampshire tend to delay childbearing longer than women who live in New Mexico, Mississippi and Oklahoma who are several years younger at the time of their first birth.

However, the United States still has the youngest age of first-time mothers in the developed countries studied. In Britain, Switzerland and other nations, the average woman now has her first baby at nearly 30 years of age.

“The U.S. is only now caught up to where other countries were in 1970 [for average age of first-time mothers],” Mathews said.

First births are considered to be an important gauge of future trends regarding how many children a woman will have, which affects population growth. 

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