Average Age of First Time Mothers in America – Latest Stats

The average age of first-time mothers in the United States is 27.5 years, according to the CDC’s most recent final birth data from 2023. That figure has risen from 26.6 in 2016 and from just 21.4 in 1970, reflecting a steady generational shift driven by education, rising child-rearing costs, and changing social expectations.

The 2023 CDC Data: Core Numbers at a Glance

The mean age of first-time mothers rose 0.9 years, from 26.6 in 2016 to 27.5 in 2023, based on every birth record registered in the United States during that period. This finding comes from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), a federal database maintained by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics that captures all live births across the country and is the authoritative source for U.S. maternal age statistics.

The shift was not limited to first births. The mean age for second births climbed 1.0 year over the same period, and the mean age for third or higher-order births rose 0.9 years. When all birth orders are combined, the average age of mothers giving birth in the United States rose from 28.7 in 2016 to 29.6 in 2023, placing the average American mother at nearly 30 years old at delivery.

How First-Birth Age Has Shifted Across Age Groups Since 2016

By 2023, the 25 to 29 age group had become the single most common age bracket for first births in America, accounting for 29% of all first births. This represents a meaningful inversion from earlier decades when the 20 to 24 group dominated both in 1960 and 1990.

Teen births fell sharply over this period. In 2016, mothers under 20 accounted for 11.8% of all births. By 2023, that share had fallen to 8.7%. Meanwhile, first births to mothers aged 35 and older saw the largest proportional increase of any group, rising 25% between 2016 and 2023.

Mean Age at First Birth by Race and Ethnicity (2023)

Asian mothers had the oldest mean age at first birth of any racial or ethnic group in the United States at 31.5 years in 2023, while American Indian and Alaska Native mothers had the youngest at 24.2 years. Every racial and ethnic group tracked by the CDC saw an increase in mean age at first birth between 2016 and 2023.

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The 7.3-year gap between Asian mothers and American Indian and Alaska Native mothers reflects compounding differences in educational attainment, geographic concentration, economic access, and structural inequality. Increases across all groups ranged from 0.4 to 1.4 years between 2016 and 2023.

How Where You Live Affects When You Have Your First Child

First-time mothers in large metropolitan counties had their first child at a mean age of 28.5 years in 2023, compared to 24.8 years for mothers in noncore rural counties, a gap of nearly 4 full years. This urban-rural divide held across every racial and ethnic group and every region of the country.

At the state level in 2023, mean first-birth age ranged from a low of 24.5 years in Mississippi to a high of 30.8 years in Washington, D.C. Massachusetts averaged 30.0 years and New Jersey 29.4 years at the top end. Arkansas (24.9) and Oklahoma (25.2) sat at the lower end alongside Mississippi. The gap between the highest and lowest state is 6.3 years, a spread driven by differences in college attainment, median income, urban density, and access to healthcare.

Education Predicts First-Birth Age More Than Any Other Single Factor

Women with a doctoral or professional degree had their first child at a mean age of 33.1 years in 2023, more than 5 years above the national average of 27.5. As educational attainment increases step by step, the age at first birth rises in a consistent and steep pattern.

Each step up in educational attainment adds roughly 3 to 4 years to the age of first birth. About half of U.S. women aged 25 to 34 now hold a bachelor’s degree, which is a primary structural force pushing the national average upward year over year.

The Long-Run Rise: How the Average Has Changed From 1970 to 2023

The average age of first-time mothers has climbed more than 6 years since 1970, rising from 21.4 years to 27.5 years in 2023, with increases recorded in almost every single year over that span. The CDC reports that with the exception of 2006, the mean age of mothers at birth has either increased or stayed the same every year since 1970.

1. 1970: Mean age at first birth was 21.4 years
2. 1970 to 2000: Mean age rose by 2.6 years to approximately 24.0
3. 2000 to 2014: Mean age climbed another 1.4 years to approximately 26.3
4. 2016: Mean age at first birth reached 26.6 years
5. 2023: Mean age at first birth reached 27.5 years, the most recent final figure available

The number of women giving birth after age 35, a threshold the medical community classifies as advanced maternal age (meaning any pregnancy in which the mother is 35 or older at the time of delivery), has increased by roughly 900 percent over the past five decades. Pregnancies over 35 now account for nearly 19% of all U.S. pregnancies and 11% of first-time pregnancies.

Why American Women Are Waiting Longer to Have Their First Child

Financial cost is the most consistently cited structural barrier to earlier parenthood. A 2025 LendingTree analysis found the annual cost of raising a young child has jumped nearly 36% since 2023, reaching approximately $30,000 per year. Over 18 years, total child-rearing costs average around $300,000 nationwide, and higher in many states. Child care alone cost between $6,552 and $15,600 per year in 2022 according to the U.S. Department of Labor, representing between 8.9% and 16% of median family income.

Education and Career Investment

Women are completing college and graduate degrees at higher rates than ever, and the time spent in higher education directly delays family formation. Women now outpace men in college completion in every major racial and ethnic group in the United States, and professional career-building in a worker’s late twenties frequently takes priority over early parenthood.

Financial Independence Before Family Formation

Women are increasingly building economic security before forming families. In 2024, 20% of all homebuyers in the United States were single women, compared with just 8% who were single men, reflecting the degree to which women are establishing financial footing independently on their own timeline before considering parenthood.

Advances in Fertility Technology

Improvements in assisted reproductive technology (ART), a category of fertility treatments that includes in vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing (also called oocyte cryopreservation, the process of extracting and storing a woman’s eggs for future use), and other clinical interventions, have made it medically viable for women to delay childbearing in ways that were not available to earlier generations.

Marriage Timing Has Shifted in Parallel

A 2025 study from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research found that, for the first time in the recorded data, the median age at first birth has surpassed the median age at first marriage in the United States. Many women are now having children either before or very shortly after marrying, rather than waiting years into a marriage as prior generations commonly did.

What Advanced Maternal Age Means: Medical Risks and Benefits

Advanced maternal age (AMA) is the clinical term for a pregnancy in which the mother is 35 years or older at the time of delivery, and it carries specific health considerations that providers assess at and beyond that threshold. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) now recommends evaluating AMA patients in five-year increments (35 to 39 and 40 to 44) rather than treating all women over 35 as a single risk category.

Documented risks associated with AMA:

• Chromosomal abnormalities, including Down syndrome, which increase with declining egg quality as a woman ages
• Gestational diabetes (high blood sugar that develops during pregnancy and typically resolves after delivery), which is more frequent in older mothers
• Preeclampsia (a complication characterized by high blood pressure during pregnancy), with some risks not sharply increasing until after age 40
• Cesarean section (C-section) delivery at higher rates due to a greater prevalence of labor complications
• Preterm birth and associated low birth weight
• Miscarriage, partly driven by higher rates of chromosomal abnormalities in eggs from older women
• Stillbirth, with one meta-analysis of 63 cohort studies finding that AMA raised the odds of stillbirth by a factor of 1.75

The absolute risk context matters significantly. Research from Harvard published in the journal Epidemiology found that while relative risks increase with age, the absolute risks for the most severe outcomes, including severe maternal morbidity, remained under 1% to 2% for women aged 35 to 40. Most healthy women who become pregnant in their late 30s or early 40s have healthy pregnancies and deliver healthy babies.

Documented advantages of later motherhood also exist. Older first-time mothers are statistically more likely to be financially stable, more educated, and in established partnerships, all of which are independently associated with better outcomes for children. Research has linked older maternal age at first birth to improvements in children’s cognitive ability, language development, and psychiatric health. One UK study found children of older mothers were less likely to be hospitalized for unintentional injuries before age 5 and more likely to have completed their recommended vaccinations by 9 months.

Fertility Decline by Age: What the Numbers Show for Women Over 35

Fertility begins to decline gradually around age 35 and drops more steeply around age 37, as both the quantity and quality of a woman’s eggs decrease over time. Women are born with all of the eggs they will ever have, and that supply shrinks continuously from birth onward, accelerating in the mid to late thirties.

Women over 35 who have been trying to conceive for 6 months without success are advised to seek evaluation from a reproductive endocrinologist (a physician specializing in diagnosing and treating fertility problems), compared to the standard 12-month threshold for women under 35. Women who freeze eggs in their late 20s or early 30s typically achieve better outcomes than those who wait until their late 30s, because both egg quality and quantity are measurably higher at younger ages.

Youngest and Oldest States for First-Time Mothers: 2023 Rankings

The mean first-birth age ranges from 24.5 years in Mississippi to 30.8 years in Washington, D.C., a 6.3-year national spread that reflects deep structural differences in college attainment, median income, urbanization, and healthcare access across states. Southern states make up the largest share of states in the youngest quartile, while the Northeast and West Coast dominate the oldest quartile.

States with the highest mean age at first birth (2023):

1. Washington, D.C.: 30.8 years
2. Massachusetts: 30.0 years
3. New Jersey: 29.4 years

States with the lowest mean age at first birth (2023):

1. Mississippi: 24.5 years
2. Arkansas: 24.9 years
3. Oklahoma: 25.2 years

States in the top quartile for first-birth age consistently showed higher college completion rates, higher median household income, greater urban density, and stronger labor market attachment among women. States in the bottom quartile showed the inverse pattern across each of those dimensions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average age of first-time mothers in the US right now?

The most recent final CDC data shows the mean age of first-time mothers was 27.5 years in 2023. The 2024 and 2025 final birth data have not yet been published by the National Center for Health Statistics, but the trend has shown consistent year-over-year increases for decades, making the current figure likely at or slightly above 27.5. The overall mean age for all births, not just first births, reached 29.6 years in 2023.

At what age do most American women have their first baby?

In 2023, the 25 to 29 age group was the most common bracket for first births, accounting for 29% of all first births in the United States. This marks a generational shift from the 1960s and 1990s, when the 20 to 24 group dominated. Women under 20 now make up just 8.7% of all births, down sharply from prior decades.

How has the average age of first-time mothers changed since 1970?

The mean age at first birth has risen more than 6 years since 1970, from 21.4 years to 27.5 years in 2023. The CDC reports that with the exception of 2006, the mean age of mothers at birth has increased or held steady every single year since 1970, reflecting sustained structural shifts in education, economics, and social norms over more than five decades.

What is advanced maternal age and when does it apply?

Advanced maternal age (AMA) is the clinical term used when a mother is 35 years or older at the time of delivery. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists currently recommends assessing AMA patients in five-year age bands (35 to 39 and 40 to 44) for more accurate risk counseling. AMA was formerly called “geriatric pregnancy,” a term now considered outdated and clinically inaccurate by most obstetric providers.

Is it safe to have a first baby at 35 or older?

Most healthy women who have their first baby at 35 to 40 have healthy pregnancies and deliver healthy babies. Risks such as gestational diabetes, chromosomal abnormalities, and C-section do increase with age, but research from Harvard found that absolute risks for the most severe outcomes remained under 1% to 2% for women aged 35 to 40. Comprehensive prenatal care and genetic screening, including cell-free DNA testing (a blood-based test that screens for chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus), are strongly recommended for all women of advanced maternal age.

Which racial or ethnic group has the oldest average first-birth age in the US?

Asian women report the highest mean age at first birth in the United States at 31.5 years in 2023, up from 30.1 years in 2016, the largest increase of any group over that period. American Indian and Alaska Native women report the youngest average age at first birth at 24.2 years in 2023, a gap of more than 7 years between the two groups. Every racial and ethnic group tracked by the CDC saw an increase in mean first-birth age between 2016 and 2023.

Does a woman’s education level affect when she has her first child?

Education is one of the strongest individual predictors of first-birth age in the United States. Women with a doctoral or professional degree had their first child at a mean age of 33.1 years in 2023, compared to a median of 20 years for women with less than a high school diploma, a spread of more than 13 years. Each level of educational attainment adds roughly 3 to 4 years to the average age of first birth.

What is the youngest average first-birth age by U.S. state?

Mississippi has the lowest mean age at first birth among all U.S. states at 24.5 years as of 2023. Arkansas (24.9 years) and Oklahoma (25.2 years) are second and third. All three states are more than 3 years below the national mean of 27.5 and are concentrated in the South, a region that consistently ranks in the lowest quartile for first-birth age nationally.

How much does it cost to raise a child in the US today?

Raising a young child in the United States costs approximately $30,000 per year as of 2025, a nearly 36% increase since 2023, according to a LendingTree analysis. Over 18 years, total child-rearing costs average around $300,000 nationwide. Child care alone cost between $6,552 and $15,600 per year in 2022 per U.S. Department of Labor data, representing 8.9% to 16% of median family income and is one of the most frequently cited reasons women delay having their first child.

How does the US average first-birth age compare to other countries?

The U.S. mean age at first birth of 27.5 years is moderate by international standards. Many Western European countries and Japan report national averages in the late 20s to early 30s, with Spain, Italy, and South Korea among the highest globally. Within the U.S., Washington, D.C.’s average of 30.8 years is comparable to several Western European national averages, while Mississippi at 24.5 years is closer to averages seen in lower-income countries where early marriage and childbearing remain common.