Just So You Know: In NY State, private insurance is required to cover out-of-hospital birth with a licensed practitioner

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A lot of people think that they can’t afford a home birth because they automatically assume that to have insurance pick up the tab means an ob-gyn facilitated hospital birth. Not so. You can choose a midwife or ob-gyn for your care in NYC, and if you choose a home birth, that should be covered too. It is true that your insurance company may challenge this, so please become aware of your rights, consider maternity care—including home birth coverage—when choosing insurance, and make your desires known to your employer and insurance provider. Click here for an interactive table showing the home birth coverage amounts for various NY health insurance plans. This link will take you to an interesting account of various New York state residents and their attempts to have their home births covered. Though I won’t deny that the struggles some people have faced with their insurance carriers can be discouraging, it is also exactly why it is so critical that everyone become more knowledgeable and empowered about their health care rights and options.

The home birth option is important for the health of women and their babies, and despite the fact that some insurance companies haven’t caught on, home birth is good for the future of healthcare. An average combined fee for prenatal care and homebirth in NYC is about $6,000 last I checked. A vaginal hospital birth without interventions is significantly more, let alone one with interventions (which are part of almost every hospital birth), or a cesarean delivery. With cesarean section being the most common surgery performed in the United States, you can imagine the health care savings that would result from shifting the health care and insurance systems to support normal birth. It would be profound.

This video was inspired by Ricki Lake's own experience with one hospital birth and one home birth.

If you want to learn more about the home birth option, I highly recommend the DVDs The Business of Being Born and Orgasmic Birth. Also, in a previous blog post I shared a video of a woman who had 2 cesarean deliveries followed by a home water VBAC. You can view that here. This mother’s story is very touching, and she became a midwife based on her experiences. There is a link to her story in that post as well. For New Yorkers, NY Homebirth maintains a list of home birth midwives that can be a good starting place for finding a provider. Whatever you choose, knowing all of your options helps ensure you make the best choice for you and your little one, and that’s what it’s all about.