When we first saw photos of Baby & Company's ‘boutique birth centres' we had to do double tak. Surely this heavenly place was a spa? Or a posh hotel?
Created to bridge the gap between a home birth and the hospital, the centres, which are located in five southern and western US States, are run by certified nurse midwives and are beautifully decorated, relaxing spaces.
The main difference between the centres and the hospital (aside from Scandinavian-luxe décor and the free-standing baths that is!) is that they are designed especially for low intervention births. Transfers to hospital can occur for numerous reasons including the mum requiring a c-section or epidural. Currently the rate of transfer from one of the centres to a hospital is 15%, with 98% of those transfers classified as non-emergency.
A stay in the centre costs $5,000-$7,500 – but for Americans, apparently the cost can be lower than the hospital. Eesh, kind of scary to think of how much they must pay for hospital care if that’s the case!
“Even if you’re out-of-network [insurance] it may be still be affordable to go to a birth center because the overhead costs are so much lower than a hospital,” a representative from the Nashville, Tennessee branch told BabyCenter.
“Depending on the deductible, and the out-of-network percentage, some people still end up paying less.”
“There are wonderful implications for birth centre care nationally. If you think about how many women go in the hospital that don’t need all the bells and whistles, if even some of them were here instead the cost savings is to the tune of millions and millions of dollars.”
Although the cost is pretty eye-watering there’s no harm in us dreaming right?
Could you see yourself giving birth in a centre like this?
