Fun Mother’s Day facts

First of all, call your mother! She worries.

Second of all, here are a bunch of interesting facts from the U.S. Census related to mothers.

2: The total fertility rate or number of births per woman in the U.S. in 2009, a decline of 4 percent from 2008 (based on current birth rates by age).

85.4 million: Estimated number of mothers in the United States in 2008.

54%: Percentage of 15- to 44-year-old women who were mothers in 2008.

82%: Percentage of women 40 to 44 who had given birth as of 2008. In 1976, 90 percent of women in that age group had given birth.

94%: Among the 37.8 million mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2004, the percentage who lived with their biological children only. In addition, 3 percent lived with stepchildren, 2 percent with any adopted children and less than 1 percent with any foster children.

4.13 million: Number of births registered in the United States in 2009. Of this number, 409,840 were to teens 15 to 19 and 7,934 to mothers 45 to 54.

25.1: Average age of women in 2008 when they gave birth for the first time, up from 25.0 years in 2006 and 2007. The increase in the mean age from 2007 to 2008 reflects, in part, the relatively large decline in births to women under age 25 compared with the small decline for women in the 25-39 age bracket.

40%: Percentage of births that were the mother’s first in 2008. Another 32 percent were the second-born; 17 percent, third; and 7 percent, fourth.

18,986: Number of births in 2008 that were the mother’s eighth or more.

42,746: Number of births in 2008 that did not occur in hospitals. Of these, 28,357 were in a residence (home) and 12,014 were in a freestanding birthing center.

32.6: Number of twin births per 1,000 total births in 2008, the highest rate on record.

6,268: Number of triplet and higher order multiple births in 2008, the lowest number reported in more than a decade. The 2008 triplet and higher order multiple total included 5,877 triplets, 345 quadruplets, and 46 quintuplets and higher order multiples.