Oklahoma Birth Statistics

Okay, this has nothing to do with government- or at least it should not. These are just some of those interesting facts some of us like to explore.

The number of live births in Oklahoma has dropped about 5% since 2009. In that year there were 53,177 reported births and 50,684 in 2011. 

Almost half of all babies born in Oklahoma are to unmarried mothers.

 Oklahoma’s rate of unmarried mothers having babies has remained relatively constant over the past few years. In 2010 and 2011 the percentage of births to unmarried mothers remained at 42%. So far in 2012 the rate is 41%.

Of those mothers unmarried at the time of birth about a quarter, 23% in 2012 and 2011 were to teens, down from 24% in 2010. The majority, around 61% for each of the years, have been to women in their 20’s.  The remaining 16% were born to women over 30.

It is interesting to note that the number of these single mothers that are living with their partner has been increasing.  The CDC reported 25 percent of women who gave birth to their first child were cohabiting with their partner. The Census confirms this in the 2011 Living Arrangements of Children Under 18 report which shows that 21% of children 2 years and younger that lived with both parents had parents that were unmarried.

With regards to teen sex, the CDC study showed for both male and female teenagers, a significantly smaller percentage were sexually experienced if they lived with both parents when they were aged 14, their mothers had their first birth at age 20 or over, the teenager lived with both of her/his parents.

For example, 35% of female never-married teenagers who lived with both parents were sexually experienced, compared with 54% among those who lived in any other parental arrangement.

The teen birth rate in Oklahoma (per 1,000 girls) was at 50.4 where the United States average was 30.3. This number has been declining in the US as well as in Oklahoma. 

The percent of teens that have had a baby at all went from 14.7% in 2009 to 11.2% in 2011. That means that there are still 1 in 10 teen girls (under 18) in Oklahoma who have had a baby, but the number of teens getting pregnant has dropped overall.

Last year 51.2% of the babies were males while 48.8% were female (of course).

Approximately 39% of the women were having their first baby while 31% were bringing in their second. 

In 2009 14% of mothers reportedly used tobacco during pregnancy. This has been steadily going down to 12% in 2011 and 11% so far in 2012. This is slightly lower that the national level of 14%.

On average since 2009 the percentage of twins born remained fairly constant at around 3%. The rate for triplet births remained constant at .1% of all births in Oklahoma.