New data is confirming a baby boom that some doctors expected was actually a “baby bust”. Health departments in more than two dozen states in the U.S. provided records to CBS News, showing a 7% drop in births in December — nine months after the first lockdowns began.

Researchers say it continues a much bigger plunge in fertility in recent decades.

The number of babies the average woman in the U.S. is expected to deliver has dropped from nearly four in the 1950s to less than two today.