File Photo (Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of births in the United States fell again in 2018, reaching the lowest level in more than three decades, government statistics released Wednesday showed.

With 3,788,235 births in 2018 -- the lowest figure since 1986 -- the number of babies born dropped 2 percent from 2017, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC report also said that 2018 was the fourth consecutive year of birth declines.

Besides, the nation's total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman would be expected to give birth to in her lifetime given current birth rates, reached a record low of 1.73 in 2018, a decline of 2 percent.

That is below the threshold for keeping current population levels, 2.1 children for every mother.

"It's a national problem," Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California, told U.S. National Public Radio.

"The birthrate is a barometer of despair," Myers said, noting that young people will not make plans to have babies unless they are optimistic about the future.