This is Definitely Not a Boom

Continuing in the same line of thought as a previous post, I found today's msnbc.com's article pretty interesting. It said that there was a record number of births in 2007-- something over 4 million babies-- and that this shouldn't be considered a "baby boom." Well, duh. What is interesting to me, though, is the following sentence:

About 4,315,000 children were born in 2007, about 15,000 more births than the peak time of the baby boom in 1957.

I find this interesting because it has taken the US fifty years (??!!?) to reach the same level of births as back then. Let's look at this in simple numbers:


In 1957, the US population was nearing 170 million people. (4 million births)

In 2007, the US population just passed 303 million poeople. (50 years later, 4 million births)

And, in other news, about 2.6 million people died in 2007....

Does anyone find this slightly concerning... or, at least, is anyone else thinking "only 4 million?" I'd love to hear your thoughts.