ATLANTA, Dec. 28 (UPI) — The number of twins born in the United States reached a new high in 2014, recent birth statistics from the Centers for Disease Control indicate.
In the United States last year, 33.9 twins were born out of every 1,000 births last year, the report said. Though not notably more than 2013 — which had a twin birth rate of 33.7 — it was a new record. The most in sheer numbers were in the three most populated states of California, Texas and New York, respectively.
Easily the lowest rate was in New Mexico (24.0).
The twin birth rate has been rising for white, African-American and Hispanic women since 1980. But while rates didn’t change for white or Hispanic women in 2013-2014, the rate continued to rise another 4 percent for African-American women.
The reason is not specifically known, however more women are giving birth later in life, which has a higher occurrence of twins, health officials said and more are using in vitro fertilization.
Meanwhile, as the twin birth rate rose, the rate for triplets or higher-order dropped another 5 percent (113.5 per 100,000 births), and has plummeted 40 percent since 1998.
