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How much does a birth cost?

According to a study conducted by the Barcelona Mar Health Park, hospital admissions and caesarean sections are the two most important factors when looking at the costs of births for the public health system. The overall cost of a birth is between 3,682 and 5,815 euros

STAFF | APRIL 29TH, 2011


4,328 euros: This is the estimated average expenditure each birth represents for the Catalan health system. The cost increases to an average of 5,815 euros if a caesarean section is required, while it falls to 3,682 euros for normal vaginal deliveries that do not require specific instrumental assistance, according to a study published in the open-access medical journal BMC Health Services Research. The study is the work of several researchers at the Barcelona Mar Health Park.

Do immigrant mothers represent higher costs?

The article analyzes a sample of 1,026 deliveries at Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar between October 2006 and September 2007. One of its most interesting findings is that it compared the cost of each birth by the origin of the mother in order to verify a hypothesis which is widespread, according to which immigrant women do not carry out as much prenatal care as native-born mothers do. This would led to an increase in caesarean sections and other complications and therefore increase the cost of the birth. Studies in other countries have suggested that this occurs.

But the results of this new study found that there are no differences regarding the cost of giving birth respect to the origin of the mother. Neither do foreign women require more caesarean sections (27% in both groups), and nor do they have more newborns with complications. The researchers even found that immigrant women do better monitoring of the pregnancy than Catalan women.

The cost of c-sections should be taken into account when considering their use

There are two items, however, that relate directly to increased cost: the type of delivery needed and whether the baby requires hospitalization. This first item alone represents over 50% of the total cost of the birth. Normal vaginal deliveries cost €2,105 on average, while caesarean sections cost €3,227 euros. Moreover, the hospitalization of the baby can mean more than a 20% increase of the cost, reaching an average of a €1,357 increase for babies delivered by caesarean section.

The economic calculation included not just the initial health costs associated with the delivery itself but all those from the nine months of pregnancy and the three-month postnatal period. It took into account a wide range of services: laboratory and radiology work, the cost of human resources involved, hospital stays, etc.

Given the impact of the overall cost of caesarean sections, the authors recommend taking into account their high cost when deciding whether to carry out this kind of intervention.

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