Welcome to the World
From pregnancy through childbirth, most of us think we are the only ones ever to feel that special (mostly hormonal!) brew of joy, love, and fear. But becoming a mother has always been, and will always be, the most extraordinary—and ordinary—human experience.
• Average number of babies born daily in the U.S. in 2006: 11,686
• Most common day of the week to be born: Tuesday
Mature First-Time Moms
Gwen Stefani was 36; Madonna was 37; Halle Berry was 41. And it turns out these Hollywood moms are not alone; record numbers of women over 30 are having babies.
• Number of new moms, ages 35 and up, 2006: 113,371
• Increased birthrate for 45- to 49-year-old mothers, since 1990: 300 percent
• Age when fertility begins to decline: 27
• IVF treatment costs: Up to $100,000 per birth
Ladies Only
Remember "First comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes so-and-so in the baby carriage"? Well, forget the old rules. About 40 percent of mothers are having babies on their own.
• Percentage of births to single mothers in 1970 and 2006: 22.4 percent and 36.2 percent, respectively
• Increase in college-educated single mothers since 1980: 145 percent
• Weeks Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide spent on the New York Times best-sellers list: 5
Generation C
Everyone from Ricki Lake to the medical community questions why the C-section rate is at an all-time high. Coincidence or conspiracy? You be the judge.
• Percentage of babies delivered by Caesarean in 2006: 31.1 percent
• Percentage by which Caesarians have increased in the last 10 years: 50 percent
• Most common time to have a C-section: Weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
• Estimated annual cost of unnecessary C-sections: over $2.5 billion
Breast Is Best
They told our grandmothers and mothers that formula was better living through chemistry. Thirty years later, the pendulum swings in the opposite direction.
• Percentage of moms who breast-fed newborns in 1971 and 2004: 25 percent and 74 percent, respectively
• Current cost of a one-year supply of formula: $1,500
Multiplicity
Twins may be more commonplace than ever, but that doesn't stop total strangers from asking the mothers of multiples inappropriate personal questions like "Did you take fertility drugs?" and "Why don't you dress them alike?"
• Increase in the number of twins from 1980 to 2004: 70 percent
• Increase in the number of multiple births of three or more from 1980 to 1998: 523 percent
• Highest-rated show on TLC: Jon and Kate Plus 8
• Money paid for exclusive first photos of Jolie-Pitt twins: $14,000,000
• Money offered to Nadya "Octomom" Suleman to appear in porn film: $1,000,000
Circumcision
To cut or not to cut? That is the question confronting the parents of every baby boy. Turns out, where you live might influence where you stand on the great turtleneck debate.
Percentage of newborn boys circumcised in hospitals:
• In the Midwest: 78.7 percent
• In the West: 31.5 percent
• In the Northeast: 66.9 percent
• In the South: 58.7 percent
New-Baby Traditions
Annoying baby-shower games. Office pools for a pregnant coworker's due date. And now, the much-debated "push present." Check out baby rituals around the world:
• Amount of time after the birth that a Greek mother and her newborn do not attend church: 40 days
• Days before a newborn's name in India is announced: 12 days
• Age at which a Hassidic Jewish boy has his first haircut: 3 years
Maternity Leave
There are over 26,000,000 working moms in the United States—that's more than the entire population of Norway, Australia, and Switzerland. So why does the U.S. have one of the world's worst maternity-leave policies?
Guaranteed paid maternity leave:
• In France: 16 weeks
• In the United Kingdom: 26 weeks
• In India: 12 weeks
• In the U.S.: 0 weeks
• Countries with maternity-leave policies comparable to that in the U.S.: Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland
Great Expectations
The book What to Expect When You're Expecting is practically required reading for new moms, although it's also been criticized for promoting fear and paranoia among pregnant women (What? I can't eat Brie?).
• Copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting in print: nearly 16,000,000
• Number of languages it's been translated into: 28, including Hindi, Thai, Arabic, Lithuanian, and Russian
