The Cost of a Baby ($24,500-$42,000)

Or: "The stupid health-care system that will cause my wonderful community hospital to be closed."

I have a good friend who had a baby eight months before I did. Her labor story and mine were very different. She was induced on the evening of Day 1, was on IV pitocin etc. until evening of Day 3, and finally had a C-section later that night. She was released from the hospital on the afternoon of Day 5. She was in very painful labor during Days 2 and 3.

I went to the hospital already fully dilated in the early morning of Day 1, gave birth vaginally four hours later, and was released in the afternoon of Day 3. Mini-Me needed a pediatric appointment on Day 4 and labs on Days 4 and 5 because of jaundice.

My friend's labor and birth, before insurance, cost $42,000. Mine cost $24,500.

The hospital I went to for my birth is a community hospital which is known in the city for supporting natural birth (ie no drugs or interventions whenever possible), has the lowest C-section rate in the city, and has a high proportion of Latino and uninsured patients. The hospital has a strong midwife program and tends to attract low-risk pregnancies.

The big hospital across town, which has a much higher proportion of (white, and) insured patients, is also the default hospital for high-risk cases in the city. At one point they had a policy restricting or barring doulas from births because of a single case where a doula interfered with a patient's care in an inappropriate way. The two hospitals are part of the same medical center.

My little hospital is not profitable. The other hospital is. And it appears that my hospital will be closed sometime in the next 1-3 years. Which really sucks. It is so troublesome to me that a hospital with a reputation for providing such good care for pregnant women is going to be closed, especially since a big part of their excellent care is avoiding interventions that may be unnecessary and potentially unhealthy for laboring women.