Kennedy's mother, Shaneecee Terry, went into labor when she was 28 weeks pregnant.

"We were caught completely by surprise," Terry said. "There weren't any hints that we were going to be going into labor so quickly. Like I said, we were hoping to hold it closer to 40 weeks."

She was admitted to the hospital and Kennedy was born three weeks later — at 31 weeks.

"It was we were kind of overtaken by everything," Terry said. "They kind of put around like a little bag to keep her heated and warmed up and they just whisper away. We didn't even get to see her or anything. So for too long, we didn't get to hold her. She didn't cry."

A few hours later, Shaneece and her husband got to meet their new 3 pound baby. According to the CDC, Shaneece and Kennedy’s story isn’t rare. While there were some fluctuations during the pandemic, data from the National Vital Statistics System shows that between the years of 2014 to 2022, pre-term birth rates (in which mothers delivered before 37 weeks of pregnancy) rose by 12% and early-term birth rates (in which  a delivery occurred between 27 to 38 weeks) rose by 20%. Doctors say it’s always concerning if the frequency of early births are going up.

"Because what that means is that then there's newborns that are having the associated complications of that early birth. So that alone makes it a finding that is both highly relevant and also concerning," Thaddeus Waters, director for maternal fetal medicine, University at Buffalo, said.

Dr. Waters says the authors highlight that the information from the report is just telling you when people delivered, but there’s isn’t much data on why.

"What do I mean by that? So preterm births can fall into basically two large categories, those which are spontaneous, meaning the mom has early labor or her water breaks or something like that," Dr. Waters said.

He says there’s another kind of birth called indicated preterm births that occur when doctors determine an early delivery is beneficial or warranted for the health of both the mother and baby. He says knowing the cause for the shift towards shorter pregnancies is a crucial piece of information for interpreting the new data.  

"Are we having more births from moms that are getting sicker earlier?" Dr. Waters said. "And then what do we need to do to help make their health care outcomes are better? You know, is it issues related to diabetes, hypertension, you know, any number of things where medical management of their pregnancy is the deficit that we need to address to help reduce the frequency of early birth."

He says once it's determined how much each situation, indicated or spontaneous, contributes to this rise, only then can health care experts work on how to prevent the premature birth statistics from rising further and pregnancies as healthy as possible.

"As far as being in the NICU, every single day is going to feel like the longest, saddest day," Terry said. "But there will be a day when you get to take your baby home. So don't lose hope. Don't lose faith and always pray about it because things really do get better."