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BY TRACY PFEIFFER

Katie Couric: “It’s a heartbreaking choice for women who see the red ink in their checkbooks and can’t press the snooze button on their biological clocks.” (CBS News)

The United States’ economic recession has forced families to cut back spending, but it might also be making them rethink having a new baby.  The National Center for Health Statistics’ annual report on birth rates showed a 2.8 percent decline from 2008 to 2009, a drop of about 111,000 births, and most analysts cite the failing economy as the culprit.

We’re analyzing coverage from CBS News, The Washington Post, NECN and NPR.

First, CBS’ Katie Couric provides historical context for birth rate decline in the United States.

Katie Couric: “There were noticeable declines in the birth rate in 2002 after 9/11 and following the recessions of the early ‘90s and mid-’70s.  The rate was so low during the Great Depression there weren’t enough babies born to replace their parents.”

And a reporter from The Washington Post explains, we might be headed in that direction yet again.

“The drop follows a 2 percent fall in births that occurred between 2007 and 2008, which pushed the nation's fertility rate below 2.1 per woman, meaning Americans were no longer giving birth to enough children to keep the population from declining.”

When the first decline was announced in 2009, NECN talked to a college professor who says the recession could have potentially helped some families make the decision to expand.

Victor Matheson: “If there’s already a parent who’s unemployed, then dropping out of the labor force isn’t nearly as big of a financial hit as opposed to stopping your career for a couple years to have children during a boom where you’re making high salaries.”

Finally, on NPR, a researcher from the Population Reference Bureau says the economy isn’t the only important part of the birth rate equation.

Mark Mather: “...if you put this recession in a broader context, there's lots of other demographic, economic factors at work here that might lead to smaller cohorts of youth. So we've got an aging population. We have more women who are postponing marriage and childbirth because of their careers. We've seen a drop in immigration to the United States during the recession.”