Newborn babies
Newborn babiesFlash 90

The number of US babies born in 2018 dropped for the fourth time consecutively and reached the lowest number in three decades, NBC News reported.

According to a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics, a total of 3,791,712 registered births in the US in 2018 - a 2% drop from the number of births in 2017.

During 2018, the fertility rate for US women was 1,729.5 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, or 1.7 births per woman. A population requires at least 2.1 births per woman, or 2,100 per 1,000 women, to maintain itself.

CDC's report also showed that birth rates among women ages 15-34 were on the decline, but birthrates for women 35-44 slightly increased. Teen births especially dropped, from 18.8 births per 1,000 women in 2017 to 17.4 births per 1,000 women in 2018.

In addition, the number of babies born to smoking mothers dropped 6.5% between 2017 and 2018, and the number of babies delivered via Cesarean section dropped slightly, from 32% in 2017 to 31.9% in 2018.