Photo by Janko Ferlič
Over the past decade, the cost of giving birth in a hospital has skyrocketed, leaving many new families burdened with medical debt on top of the stress of caring for a newborn. On average, hospital births cost $18,865, encompassing pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum care. Even with private insurance, families can expect to pay around $3,000 out of pocket. Adding to these expenses is the average annual cost of childcare, $11,582 a year, along with lost income from taking time off work. This makes the United States among the most expensive countries in the world to give birth.
Despite the high price tag of giving birth, black women are still three times as likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women or Hispanic women. However, most of these complications are preventable. Low-income people and people whose insurance does not cover childbirth struggle to pay for prenatal care, which puts the pregnant person at risk for unforeseen complications.
Improving the quality of care and treating complications promptly can help to prevent these deaths. In addition, regular check-ups with a healthcare provider can help manage any conditions that affect the patient during pregnancy, such as depression and hypertension. We need access to reproductive resources in the United States. The current health system is failing to provide the necessary care to provide quality reproductive health services to women and girls.
The low prioritization of women’s rights has become an increasingly prevalent issue in the United States, as safe and affordable access to abortion services has been shut down all across the country. States with abortion bans or restrictions have higher rates of maternal mortality and have been shown to have increased racial disparities in their healthcare systems.
In 2023, there were 930,160 abortions, yet state legislators are actively working to ban abortions, and healthcare costs for giving birth are increasingly on the rise. Providing appropriate resources to pregnant people is paramount. Women should be able to control what happens to their bodies without worrying about financial instability, whether that means giving birth or accessing safe abortion services.
