August is baby month

We bid a hearty welcome to the millions of new earthlings who arrive in August, the month with the highest birth rate. You are the proud results of a joyous Christmas season… even if your parents did not put up Christmas trees.

19.5% of new August babies are born in India and 11.6% in China, respectively 6 and 4 times more than in the United States: approximately 2.2 million and 1.3 million vs 0.4 million. Which means two babies are born every second in India and China vs a new baby every 8 seconds in the US. World-wide, 5 beautiful new babies are born every second.

The global fertility rate is 2.61 while the United States has a fertility rate of 2.05 children born per woman. One in every 31 new cuddly earthlings born globally is born in the US, thus 3% of all new births.

Nearly 40% of the American newlings – 2 out of 5 American babies – are born to unwed mothers. One in ten are born to a teenage mother, according to the National Center for Health. The birth rate among US teenagers is twice as high as the average for all developed countries: 42 births per thousand teenage girls (ages 15-19) vs 21 per thousand.

About 51% of all babies born in the US are boys; 49% are girls. Of the estimated 135 million new babies born world wide every year, approximately 70 million are boys and 65 million are girls. Yes, about 5 million more baby boys! (On average, there are some 36 million more boys and girls – of all ages – in the world.) Boys continue to outnumber girls until about age 40, when the number evens out. By age 65, there are only 88 boys for every 100 women. By age 85, women outnumber men almost 2-to-1, proof that boys over 80 are doubly blessed

In the US, the average weight of a baby at birth is 7 pounds, 5 ounces. More babies are born on Tuesdays and Wednesdays than any other day, with Sundays delivering the fewest babies. And compared with other months, the stork flies least in February.