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Show ' BIRTHS PAST YEAR SET NEW RECORD If all the new babies of 1947 were laid end to end, they would probably reach for a bottle. The line-up, however, would be longer than ever before in history. According Ac-cording to latest estimates from the Federal Security Agency, total live births numbered 3,910,000 last year. That's 621,000 more than in 1946, the previous record, and 975,000 more than the wartime peak in 1943, reports Pathfinder. The 1947 infant death-rate also made history a new low of 32.6 deaths (of babies under 12 months) for every 1,000 live births. The 1946 figure was 35.1. When the baby bubble would burst was still anybody's guess. Some statisticians thought it would be this year on the basis of a slipping marriage rate. Incomplete Incom-plete figures indicate that total issue of marriage licenses in 1947 may have dropped about 13 per cent from the all-time high of 1946. |