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Natural Birth
yeshuahamasshiah
member
How much are you spending on your home birth?
yeshuahamasshiah
member
So far this is our list:
Midwife fee: $2600
Doula
fee: $400
Childbirth class: $165
Placenta
dehydration/encapsulation: $80
Water trough (birth pool): $70
Birth
Kit: $35
.... there are other miscellaneous stuff we have to get and I am hoping is not a whole lot more .... I did not realize we were going to have to spend this much OOP!!
How much are you spending?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: How much are you spending on your home birth?
Midwife: $2,000, birth kit $40.
She is a doula and has an assistant who works with her, who is also a doula. She is a LaLeche coach, providing BF education, as well as providing one-on-one childbirth education and videos with every visit. She provides the pool, she comes to our home for every prenatal visit from the first to the last, placenta will be buried under a tree in our back yard.
DD was supposed to be born with a midwife that would have cost us $1200 (in '98), but she came early and was born in the hospital, costing us $3,712 for the u/s, the room, the IV, the fetal monitor, the stitches, and the dr who barely made it in time to catch her.
Midwife - $3000 (includes cost of renting her birth pool)
Birth Assistant - $500
Birth Kit - $27
Birth Pool Liner - $20
Hypnobirth Class - $350
Random Birth Stuff - $100
Food for Birth - $50 (for me and the birth team)
Last October my home birth cost:
Midwives - free (covered under our provincial health plan)
Doula - $1000
Birth Kit - $75
Miscellaneous - $50 *we had to go get some items from Whole Foods to add to the Verbena shake I needed and ended up getting a bunch of snacks for everyone.
It's pretty out of control here! Talking to others who are having home births in this area, this seems to be pretty standard, though! Here are my out-of-control expenses!
Midwives (2+1 assistant) = $4,500
Doula = $1,500
Birth Tub = $150
Birth Kit = $100
Birth Class = $340
Newborn Class = $90
Placenta Encapsulation = $150
(I don't even want to add on my weekly acupuncture and prenatal yoga costs. I think that I'll faint... Acupuncture = $95/week. Yoga = $20/week)
Let's hope that our "premium" insurance reimburses SOME of this, although I'm not counting on it! For now, this is all OOP. YIKES!
Midwife fee - $3000
Doula - $300
Birth Kit - $60
Pool Rental - $100
Birth supplies: ~$70
Placenta dehydration/encapsulation supplies: $25
Doula fee: $400
Birth Pool: Free
We've spent more $ on books than supplies at this point, LOL
The MW fee is $5200 but when its all said and done I think we're looking at around $6500. It makes me cringe a little since a hospital birth would have been nearly no cost to us at all, but after my previous hospital birth I'd probably have been willing to pay any amount or give up a limb to make this happen.
Home Birthing-Breastfeeding-Cloth Diapering-Baby Wearing-CoSleeping-Delayed/Selective Vaccination Mama to Charlie (5yrs) and Madeline (21mos)
Midwife (pre and post natal and delivery): $5100 (includes a $1000 paid in cash discount)
Hypnobirthing: $300
Misc Birth Supplies: $50
Doula fee: No more than $3500 (not sure how much insurance will reimburse)
Birth pool: $50
Placenta encapsulation: $150
Birth kit: $50ish
other "stuff": I'd guess $30
My home birth was pretty much FREE!
The MWs were covered under my insurance 100%.
I paid $650 for my birth assitant...but my insurance reimbursed me $300 of that.
I paid a small amount in chux pads, etc..but not much.
Bradley classes were about $300 I think.
Midwife fee: $2400 + $300 call-out fee for the 2nd midwife. We paid cash upfront, and are still working through the insurance reimbursement process, but it looks like it'll be fully covered.
Birth kit: About $80, I think? Paid OOP. My insurance company gives a $500 homebirth supplies allowance, so the birth kit was fully covered by that.
Birth tub: None, I used our big jacuzzi tub. But had I needed one, it also would have been covered by the homebirth supplies allowance.
New sheets/towels: About $300, paid OOP, also covered by the homebirth supplies allowance. That's the only reason I got them! I love my insurance company!
Childbirth classes: $100. I did the Hypnobabies home study, bought it used, and hope to resell it, so it'll end up costing even less.
Doula: $400
Birth photographer: $750
Snacks: No idea how much DH spent, but not a ton. We had a veggie tray and a fruit tray for the midwives
Lactation consultant home visit: $140. If I had had a hospital birth, I would have seen the LCs in the hospital and it would've been covered fully. Instead, I had this home visit (paid OOP), and insurance reimbursed 80% of it.
If I had done hospital birth, insurance would have fully covered the midwife fee and LC fees in the hospital upfront, but I would have had to pay for the birth tub (no tubs in the hospital rooms), doula, and photographer. So really, homebirth will end up being about the same cost in the end, once all the reimbursement comes in; I just had to pay a LOT more upfront.
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
Are you in Orange County, CA? Can I ask which midwife you're using? I've got a consult with South Coast Midwifery and the costs are on my list of questions to ask as they are out of network for my insurance and I'm concerned how much we'll pay OOP.....
Do these midwife fees include prenatal/postpartum care? I'm pretty sure my insurance will cover that, but not the homebirth services.
i know for some people these costs sound expensive, but what is the value of the birth of your baby?
the cost includes: all of your prenatal and post partum appts, in most cases you get a one hour appt with your mw, gentle care, lots of nutritional guidance, a provider that is willing to be at your house with you on your special day for as long as it takes and in some cases one who will accompany you to the hospital if you need to go.
i have been at a woman's house for 30+ hours and then went to the hospital with her and spent another 4 hours there until the baby was born and mom and dad were sleeping.
these costs might sound expensive but mw's do not make that much money. in fact most of the ones i know make enough to get buy but are not rich like OB/GYN's and provide way better care, IMO.
i think that the cost of your pg and birth should be something considered when you start TTC. i also think it would be great if insurance companies would cover all expenses related to mw, some do and some don't. that might be another part of your ttc process is to find one that covers it if money is a problem.
please have food at your house for your birth team. i know that i have really appreciated that at 2am, when i've been up for 20+ hours. we need comfort food and brain food so that we can stay sharp to make decisions.
My fee is $3000 for everything - prenatal, postpartum and delivery. That is for two midwives.
$2400 for midwife (pre-post care as well)
$100 for birth kit
$100 for pool
$350 for Bradley classes
Sorry if my post seemed as if I was complaining. I really do not think my MW is charging "too much" .... it is just a tad ridiculous that most insurances would rather cover thousands upon thousands of $$$ at a hospital yet deny you the opportunity/possibility of having an intervention free birthing in the comfort of your home!
Regardless, I know my MW is doing a much better job than any OB ever could. She comes to me for all pre-natal and post-natal care. She also does not add any charges for bringing TWO attendants to the birth and she takes care of setting up a back up in case she is not available for some reason.
Definitely I agree that when TTC these expenses should be considered and discussed with your partner to make sure that you will be able to afford the birth you desire. The only issue I see with this is that many first time moms do not even begin to think of all the things you are pushed and shoved at a hospital/OB office setting until you are already pregnant and under their care .... I know this was the case for me. I did not switch to my MW until I was 28 weeks along .... but I am so glad I did.
Yes, and I am using them actually. We are paying for it all OOP since I don't have insurance and they offered a discount -something like 5 or 10% if it was paid up front in full, but also had a payment plan where we pay a $400 at each visit (but we usually overpay so we wont have a lump amount left over at the end). The $5200 is the overall fee for the home birth, but if we were to have it at the birth center it would be something like an additional $1700, if i recall correctly. The majority of our additional fees come from having to pay OOP for labs, u/s, etc. which your insurance will probably cover if you choose to have them done.
Home Birthing-Breastfeeding-Cloth Diapering-Baby Wearing-CoSleeping-Delayed/Selective Vaccination Mama to Charlie (5yrs) and Madeline (21mos)
oh no, it didn't sound like complaining at all. that was just my $0.02 about the issue and i so agree about insurance companies covering the charges. i have yet to figure out why they won't. i am however noticing more and more of them that are covering it or at least partially covering it. some of them will only cover it if there is a CNM or OB in the mw's practice.
we have a CNM that we work with for specifically that reason. i bet a lot of independent mw's or mw's that are in a smaller practice might not have that option.
as consumers of insurance policies we should be the ones to call the shots and they should be doing what we want to make us happy, somewhere along the lines all of that changed and it often feels like we work for them. grrr.....
I definitely think that my Midwives + Birth Team are worth the money!
It's just outrageous that our insurance currently won't cover anything! (Crossing fingers that they'll pay some of it when they get the "final bill" after the birth. Currently, though, nothing!) We pay $800 OOP every month for this "great" coverage. My DH is an attorney and works for one of the 5 biggest law firms in the world, but we still have to pay for our insurance OOP. It's party of the "Associate/Partner" contract! We would be better off ditching our insurance and just paying OOP for everything since we pay almost $9,600 a year for insurance! So, for us, I look at it as paying what I mentioned above + $9,600 for insurance that is useless.
Stupid ACOG screws us over by reporting that home births are "unsafe" so that insurance companies can get out of paying anything for them - even when under the supervision of a CNM. Our policy states that I HAVE to be under the supervision of an OB for them to pay. There are no OB/CNM home birth teams in our area, so I'm not holding my breath that I'll get any of this money reimbursed.
Even when I add the cost of useless insurance + cost of home birth, I still think that it's worth almost $17,000 to have my birth at home. I think that just the quality of the prenatal care that I've received so far is pretty priceless!
That makes me sad that so many of you have to pay for your midwives out of pocket! I hope the insurance companies change that someday. We have Regence Blue Shield and they cover our midwives 100%, even for a homebirth. I think we had Providence when I had DS, and they covered it all too. I'm feeling very, very lucky.
Ugh, my old insurance would have covered it, but since I quit my job I have DH's mediocre insurance. It specifically excludes homebirth, but I think there are some birth-center midwives that are covered, and who attend homebirths, so hopefully I can get pre and post natal care covered through one of them.
I can't use the birth center because of a ridiculous WA state law prohibiting women with "prior uterine surgery" from using a birth center, and I'm a VBAC candidate. Soo much baggage to start out with!
Oh, and my c-section with hospital stay was something like $15k. How about the insurance company just pays ME the $15k and I'll pay the midwife and pocket the rest!
We opted for a hospital birth this time, but HB is still an option for #3. That being said I talked to a great local MW and here's what was quoted to us:
birth kit: $150..I think. That or $50 lol. I can't remember!
midwife fee: $2200
2 beautiful children
proud mommy!