Home Births Way Up in 2020

The number of home births surged in 2020. The 45,646 babies born at home were 19 percent more than the 2019 number. Babies born at home accounted for 1.26 percent of all births in 2020, up from 1.03 percent of births in 2019—a 21 percent increase and the highest share since 1990. What accounts for this increase? Covid, of course. Because of "concerns about contracting Covid-19 while in the hospital, limitations or bans on support people in the hospital, and the separation of infants from mothers suspected to have Covid-19, interest in giving birth at home increased," explains the National Center for Health Statistics. 

By month, the percentage of births occurring at home in January and February of 2020 was the same as the share in 2019. The percentage jumped above the trend line in March 2020, when the share was 5 percent greater than in March 2019. In April 2020, the home birth share was 23 percent higher than in April 2019. In May 2020, the home birth share was 45 percent greater than it had been one year earlier. The share remained well above average in every month through the rest of the year. 

Home births accounted for more than 2 percent of total births in these 12 states in 2020...

3.18% in Idaho

3.02% in Vermont

2.82% in Wisconsin

2.63% in Utah

2.59% in Montana

2.58% in Washington

2.43% in Hawaii

2.40% in Oregon

2.32% in Maine

2.25% in Alaska

2.25% in Wyoming

2.20% in Pennsylvania

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Changes in Home Births by Race and Hispanic Origin and State of Residence of Mother: United States, 2018–19 and 2019–20 (PDF)