Cost of Childbirth: Home Birth vs Birthing Center vs. Hospital

Table of Content

• Home and home-away-from-home options
• Home vs Birthing Center vs Hospital: Where to Give Birth
• Financing a Homebirth vs. Hospital Birth
• Home Birth vs Hospital Birth – Pros and Cons
• Do you really need travel insurance? Get the scoop on what it covers (and doesn’t) before you decide.
• Home Birth: What You Need to Know
• Cons of hospital birth
• Thinking about childbirth settings? What to consider for home vs. hospital birth

Create a birth plan with your healthcare professional’s approval. Choose a pediatrician and arrange to have your baby seen within the first days following birth. In the event of an emergency, you’ll need to get to a hospital. Home births have been found to be safest when they take place near a hospital.

A home birth cost is significantly lower than a hospital birth. The cost is anywhere between $2,000-$4,000 depending on your location, extent of your home birth plans, and the availability and price of a midwife, which we will be discussing in this article. That

Home and home-away-from-home options

It’s important when choosing a midwife that it’s someone who has both experience and certification. You should also be having regular check-ins with them to ensure you’re on the same page. While home birth statistics point to an increased risk, things are beginning to change.

Not only that, but delivering at home is certainly not “meek” as you put it. To imply that homebirthing mamas are somehow lesser for not going to a medical establishment and duking it out with the providers there if they have to is the problem this article is trying to address. This conversation should not be about which choice makes you a better woman, but which choice is better for the woman making it. In my county–Greenville SC– there is 1 hospital that has a group of well-respected CNMs on staff, and 1 hospital that has 1 midwife on rotation . I know of no midwife-attended hospitals in the midstate area and only of one hospital in Charleston that may still have midwives in attendance.

Home vs Birthing Center vs Hospital: Where to Give Birth

You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy. If you’re considering giving birth at home, start by learning more about the ins and outs of this experience. In 2017, 62,228 of births took place outside of a hospital. You’ll still need to work with a midwife or trained medical professional, and the cost can vary widely, depending on where you live. It is not a safe option for everyone, depending on your individual risk factors. You can avoid possibly unnecessary medical interventions.

Comfort is great, but the security of knowing you’re in the right place to be taken care of is of utmost importance. The out of pocket cost of having a home birth is completely dependent upon your insurance company. Most insurance companies that cover midwives for home births cover them as out-of-network providers. Though safer, hospital births may feel less intimate and can come with restrictions due to COVID-19. You can discuss this with your midwife or doctor to make sure you’ll have everything you need. Most home birth providers will bring a large kit of medical supplies with them for your labor and birth.

Financing a Homebirth vs. Hospital Birth

Some, though, have found a higher rate of neonatal seizures (without evidence that the researchers separated between low- and high-risk women). One major insurance company that DOES cover planned home births is United Health Care, provided that it follows the requirement set forth here. We excluded from our analysis, 217 mother-baby pairs in which the babies had one or more ICD-10 codes for congenital malformations. After removal of one birth with data entry errors, and 19 births in hospitals where the cost per weighted case was not available, the study population comprised records related to 9,864 live births. It’s also important to find a healthcare professional who can clearly outline when home birth is a safe option for you and when they would recommend a hospital transfer.

Here's what you need to know about the risks and who may be a candidate. One of the advantages of a home birth is the freedom to labor as you please, so you should also consider labor aids such as a birthing pool, a birth ball, and music. Many home birth midwives have birth tubs available to loan or rent to their clients. There are some more high risk situations where continuous fetal monitoring in a hospital is warranted, but for someone who’s low risk, the risks frequently outweigh the benefits.

Our study demonstrates a significant cost savings for planned home birth in British Columbia with a regulated midwife compared to planned hospital birth, either with a regulated midwife or with a physician. As expected, transport costs were higher for mothers in the home birth group, but provider fees, hospital costs and pharmaceutical costs were lower for both mothers and infants. We would expect hospital costs to be lower since most women in the planned home birth would not be admitted to hospital. This is the first study of home birth to extend analysis of cost to the conclusion of the postpartum period for mothers and to one year for infants. However, delayed morbidity does not appear to be a consequence of home birth.

I’m not a raging feminist by any means, but last time I checked, men don’t have babies. Every birth is unique, not a number, not a statistic or a perfectly timed sequence of events. I truly don’t know if I would choose a home birth, but I do know that the hospital across the street from me has a 40% C-section rate and will call CPS if I decline a routine, non-evidence-based newborn procedure on my baby. In California, a woman who has had a C-section faces a hospital ban of vaginal birth after Cesarean. Her insurance refuses to pay for her to go elsewhere, citing the “lack of medical necessity” of vaginal birth. She spends her entire pregnancy fighting with the insurance company over this policy and is denied six times in her appeals.

Do you really need travel insurance? Get the scoop on what it covers (and doesn’t) before you decide.

While a well-planned home birth works well for some, it

I have been a labor and delivery nurse for the last 27 years mostly working in low risk and Ldrp units. In all those years i have never seen a doctor take the c/section road lightly. It is unfortunate, but it is difficult to have it both ways. Not all midwives are good or capable not all physicians are either. I had a lousy midwife but was transferred to the hospital where I lucked out and received a great OBGYN on call that night. Because of my experience I do tend to think now that a successful homebirth is an exception and the mother lucky.