The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new findings showing a dramatic drop in the number of triplets being born in the U.S. in recent years.
The report indicated that the decline began around 1998, but really picked up around 2009. In 1998, mothers giving birth to three or more children at once accounted for 193.5 out of 100,000 total births. By 2023, that number dropped to 73.8 out of 100,000 total births.
In 1998, triplet, quadruplet and higher-order multiple births totaled 7,625 in the U.S. By 2009, that number declined to 6,340. In 2023, just 2,505 births involved three or more babies.
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This trend was also noted among quadruplet and higher-order births. In 1998, there were 706 births involving at least four infants. In 2023, there were 148.
The data indicated race was a major factor. The rate of White mothers giving birth to three more children at once declined 73% between 1998 and 2023. But for non-Hispanic Black moms, they were actually 25% more likely to give birth to three or more children.
Overall, the CDC says that the births of triplets remain at rates higher than before when fertility treatments became popularized in the mid-80s, which caused a huge spike in moms giving birth to multiple children at once. Changes to treatments, however, have led to numbers to come back down, the report notes.
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"This decline in triplet and higher-order births over the last 25 years has been associated with changes to guidance related to the number of embryos transferred during assisted reproductive technology use," the report's authors wrote.
