How Much Does a Home Birth Cost?
How much does a home birth cost? Are home births cheaper than hospital births? What additional expenses should you expect? Find out exactly how much you should expect to pay for your planned home birth in this blog post.
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Every year, more than 50,000 babies are born at home in the US. That’s about 1.5% of all births, but the number is steadily growing as planned home births become more popular.
Cost is often a deciding factor for families choosing home birth over a hospital birth. While home births are generally less expensive, the way insurance plays into it can complicate things. So how do you plan financially for a home birth?
In this post, we’ll break down the various costs—from midwife fees to birth certificates to hiring a birth photographer—and explore how insurance might impact what you pay out of pocket.
Are Home Births Safe?
First, let’s address the elephant in the room: are home births safe?
Short answer: yes – for most women, most of the time, home births are safe. I dig into WHY that’s true in my blog post Are Home Births Safe?
Related to the issue of safety is whether or not anyone can do a home birth. Again, yes, most women could confidently choose a home birth knowing it’s a good option for them.
The most basic reason for this is that less than 10% of births are “high-risk” and require close supervision by a doctor. Midwives are trained healthcare professionals and are well-qualified to be the primary attendants at low-risk births (which, again, is most).
What Are All the Costs of a Home Birth?
Generally, three categories make up the cost of a birth:
- prenatal care and your provider;
- the required supplies, documentation, and newborn tests; and
- any additional people you want at your birth.
Let’s look at each one and find out how much each will cost when we’re talking about a planned home birth.
Prenatal Care and Your Provider
Most likely, the biggest expense for a home birth will be paying your midwife.
There are different types of midwives but if you hire a home birth midwife, she’ll probably be a certified professional midwife (CPM). A CPM is a midwife who doesn’t have a nursing background but who has gone through several years of training.
The cost of hiring a midwife differs based on where you live and the level of experience of the midwife. Generally, you can expect to pay somewhere between $3,000 and $7,000.
That may seem like a lot but for what it includes, that’s a pretty good price, especially if we’re looking at the low end. That couple thousand dollars usually includes all your prenatal care, your birth, and up to 6 weeks of postpartum care for you and your baby.
It is important to point out that ultrasounds and lab tests, like blood draws or testing for Group B Strep, are often not included in the midwife fee. (Sometimes they aren’t included in your OBGYN fee either.) That means you’ll be paying out of pocket for those, so be prepared.
Ultrasounds typically cost $100–$200 dollars. Lab test costs can vary but are often somewhere between $50–$150 each.
Finally, keep in mind that a home birth midwife may require payment upfront (during pregnancy rather than after the birth, like a hospital would). So be sure to factor that in to your figuring.
Supplies, Documentation, and Testing
Birth requires a few supplies. The list of necessities for a home birth is pretty short but there are a lot of optional items you may want to have on hand, too.
You can find a full list of supplies you’ll want to have ready for your home birth in The Ultimate List of Home Birth Supplies.
To make things easier, many midwives will provide a home birth kit as part of the fee you already paid them. That kit will include things like plastic-backed absorbent pads, mesh underwear, sterile gloves, and cord clamps.
The only things I bought for my first birth (excluding postpartum and breastfeeding supplies) were a plastic shower curtain to protect my sheets in case I gave birth on the bed, a hose to drain the birth pool, and food to snack on during labor. That’s it!
I already had most of what I needed (like towels, bowls, and sheets) and my midwife provided the rest. My midwife also provided the birth pool; I paid her about $100 extra to rent it from her.
One cost most people don’t think about is birth certificates. (This is a cost you’ll have whether you give birth at home or not.) In the US, the cost of a birth certificate ranges from less than $10 to more than $30. It’s not a huge expense, but it’s a good thing to be aware of.
Finally, all newborns receive a screening test to check for conditions that can affect their long-term health or survival. In the US, the testing is mandatory and can only be refused on a religious basis.
In some states the screening is free. In others you may pay anywhere from $15-$150.
Additional People at Your Birth
Once you’ve added up the costs of prenatal care, your midwife, supplies, and testing, you can stop there. Or you can add in two more things: cost of a doula and cost of a birth photographer.
You don’t have to have a doula if you choose to do a home birth. But you can! I opted to have my husband be my “doula.” We took a Bradley Childbirth class together and he wanted to be as involved as possible with my birth experience, so that worked for us. Obviously, I didn’t have to pay him. 😉
If you do choose to hire a doula, whether as your only support person or in addition to your husband or partner, you can expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000. Like with a midwife, the cost of doula varies based on their experience and where you live.
READ MORE >> What is a Doula?
When it comes birth photographers, you could have a friend do it for cheap or you can pay a professional who might charge thousands. Birth photography is a relatively new idea, so prices are pretty individual based on the photographer.
From what I’ve seen, fees for birth photographers start in the $1,000 range and can go up to the $5,000 range.
Home Birth and Insurance
Insurance isn’t the most exciting topic. But it’s an important one to cover when planning your birth.
If you give birth in a hospital, insurance typically covers a significant portion of the costs. But what happens if you choose a home birth?
In the U.S., where hospital births are the norm, midwifery care for home births is usually not fully covered by insurance, if at all. That said, home birth can be more affordable even without insurance. (It was for me!)
If you’re hoping to use insurance to cover your midwife’s fees, it’s crucial to ask about this when meeting with midwives. Policies and coverage vary, so it’s handled on a case-by-case basis. Some midwives may work with insurance, while others may offer different payment options.
Keep in mind: If you have comprehensive insurance and have met your deductible, a hospital birth might end up being less expensive or even fully covered. That can be a great option if you’re comfortable with a hospital setting. Unfortunately, this level of coverage isn’t always available for home births.
In short, don’t count on insurance to cover your home birth costs, but always check with midwives about their specific policies and options.
What If I Transfer to the Hospital?
Occasionally, a woman planning a home birth transfers to the hospital in the middle of labor. If you were to transfer to the hospital before birth, for any reason, you would likely need to pay your midwife, the doctor, and the hospital.
That would be expensive, but insurance would help with the cost of the hospital and doctor bills.
The Cost of a Childbirth Class
There is one final cost you should consider when planning a home birth: taking a childbirth class. Every woman would benefit from taking a childbirth class but it’s especially important for those planning an unmedicated birth.
Each class will be priced differently, but you can expect to pay $400–$600 for you and your husband or partner to take a class.
My #1 recommendation for a childbirth class is the one from the lovely ladies at Beautiful One Midwifery. Their online course is the most comprehensive class I know of, covering all three trimesters + postpartum in depth.
It’s got about 37 hours of content gold plus lots of other downloadable and linked resources.
It All Adds Up To This
So let’s add it all up.
Prenatal Care + Midwife Fee: $3,000–7,000
Ultrasounds + Lab Tests: ~$500
Supplies + Birth Certificate + Newborn Screening: ~$400
Doula (optional): $1,000–4,000
Photographer (optional): $1,000–5,000
Childbirth class: ~$500
Let’s say you choose not to hire a doula or a photographer. If that’s the case, you should expect to pay somewhere between $4,400 and $8,400 for your prenatal and postnatal care and your birth.
If you choose to hire a doula and a photographer, you’re looking at about $6,500 on the low end, with prices going up the more experience your midwife, doula, and photographer have.
For comparison, a hospital birth with insurance costs about $3,000. And you’ll probably pay your OBGYN another $3,000 or so. Plus, like I mentioned, ultrasounds and lab fees aren’t necessarily included in that OBGYN fee so you’ll have to add those on too.
So unless you’ve already met your deductible with your insurance (which means you’ve already paid them so much in the current year that they cover basically all your costs) a home birth is most likely going to be cheaper than a hospital birth.
And if not cheaper, it will probably be about the same price.
In the end, hopefully cost isn’t your deciding factor when it comes to your birth location and experience. But if it does play a big part in your decision, rest assured that a home birth is usually going to be the cheaper option.
To learn more about home births, check out Are Home Births Safe?.
Until next time,
Allison
Considering a Home Birth?
Are you on the fence about whether or not a home birth is the right choice for you? Then you need my free guide, Is a Home Birth Right For Me?.
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