HOUSTON, TX – It’s one of the most beautiful moments in life. It’s also one of the most expensive. Especially here in the good ol’ U-S-of-A. Costs for delivering a baby have tripled in the last fifteen years.
In fact, America is now the most expensive of all developed nations when it comes to making babies, with a simple, “no-complications” delivery costing as much as fifty-thousand-big-ones. No joke.
“That’s become the focal point of birth,’ child birth educator Amanda Moore explains, ”How do I afford it, where am I going to go, what should I ask for, is this test necessary,’ versus actually preparing for the birth itself.”
In Switzerland the average cost of a birth is around $4,000.00. And while we Americans are paying more, it’s not because we’re necessarily getting better services. According to Childbirth Connection, it’s because rather than paying a flat fee for delivery service at a hospital, we’re billed for each and every service, diaper and test performed individually with insurance providers picking and choosing which one’s they will cover. And if you’re uninsured, good luck.
“At that point you’re picking and choosing between basic necessities,” Amanda explains.
The good news is that there are ways of cutting down the expense of having a baby. If early obstetrics indicate a healthy child, many of the follow-up screenings can be avoided. And opting to have your baby delivered by a midwife can cut delivery costs by as much as 80%.
“They know the prices right off the bat for birthing at home, they have a sense of how birth will go because they’ve done it before and that seems like a much better fit for them.”
Another trend is hospitals choosing to go back to a flat-fee rate for deliveries. Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix now charges a flat fee of 3,850.00 for traditional births and $5,600 for C-sections. It will be interesting to see if any other hospitals get on the band-wagon and follow suit.
