While some in the government expressed alarm after the National Center for Health Statistics, a part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, released a document in March stating births to unwed mother reached an all-time high of nearly 40 percent, the rate of births out of wedlock remains low in many states. The National Vital Statistics Report entitled "Births: Preliminary data for 2007"  provides data on all births in United States in 2007 and includes information on the rate of births to unwed mothers in each state. Below is a list of the states with the lowest unwed mother birth rates; each state is followed in parentheses by the percentage of all live births in that state to unwed mothers.


The top 10 states with the lowest rate of births to unwed mothers are:

Utah (19.6%)
Colorado (25.4%)
Idaho (25.5%)
New Hampshire (31.4%)
North Dakota (32.6%)
Minnesota (32.7%)
Washington (33.2%)
Massachusetts (33.4%)
Nebraska (33.4%)
Iowa (34.3%)

For more information about birth, join the Healia Online Community for Pregnancy or the Healia Online Support Group for Childbirth. Find out more about pregnancy by reading the Healia Health Guide to Pregnancy.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National vital statistics reports, Births: Preliminary data for 2007, Web release 03/09; vol 57 no 12. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_12.pdf

While the percentage of babies born prematurely has risen by one-third since the 1980s, the rate dropped by 1 percent in 2007 compared to the previous year to a rate of 12.7 percent. Premature or preterm babies are defined as those born before the 37th week of pregnancy. Babies born between the 37th and 40th week are considered full-term. This data comes from a recent national vital statistics report from the National Center for Health Statistics, a part of the CDC, called Births: Preliminary data for 2007. The report contains data on all births in the U.S. during 2007, including information on the rates of premature in each state. Several states still have relatively high rate of premature births and the top 10 are listed below, with the percentage of all live births that were premature appearing in parentheses.

The top 10 states with the highest rates of preterm births are:

Mississippi (18.3%)
Alabama (16.6%)
Louisiana (16.5%)
South Carolina (15.5%)
Kentucky (15.2%)
Delaware (14.3%)
Nevada (14.3%)
Tennessee (14.2%)
Arkansas (13.9%)
West Virginia (13.9%)


For more information about birth, join the Healia Online Community for Pregnancy or the Healia Online Support Group for Childbirth. Find out more about pregnancy by reading the Healia Health Guide to Pregnancy.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National vital statistics reports, Births: Preliminary data for 2007, Web release 03/09; vol 57 no 12. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_12.pdf

_{Photo: César Rincón, Flickr, Creative Commons}