Map: Minnesota births increased in 2021

Births in Minnesota rose slightly in 2021, per newly released CDC data.

The big picture: More than 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2021, a 1% increase from 2020 levels, Axios' Adriel Bettelheim reports.

• That's a reversal of a years-long trend: U.S. births had been declining by an average of 2% every year since 2014, and plunged 4% in the early phase of the pandemic, from 2019 to 2020.

Zoom in: The CDC reports that 64,398 babies were born in Minnesota last year, an increase of 1.5% from 2020's stats.

Of note: The percentage of premature births nationally also hit its highest reported level since data became available.

• In Minnesota, 9.63% of babies were born before 37 weeks in 2021, up from 9.11% in 2020. The latest figures put us under the national average of 10.48%.