The average of what it costs to give birth in a hospital in Spain It's 4,328 euros. That is the amount that each birth supposes for the health system, although it can be raised up to 5,815 euros if a cesarean section must be done and down to 3,682 euros for normal vaginal deliveries that do not require specific instrumental assistance.
These are the interesting facts that are known thanks to a study developed by different researchers from the Parc de Salut Mar, in Barcelona and published by the medical journal BMC Health Services Research.
The paper analyzes a sample of 1,026 deliveries attended at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona between October 2006 and September 2007, and includes expenses from nine months of pregnancy to three months of postnatal period.
The study takes into account a wide range of services: from laboratory or radiology needs to therapeutic actions, the cost of the human resources involved, hospital stays ...
One of its singularities is that it has been done in an area with a high immigration rate, and has compared the cost of childbirth according to the mother's origin with the objective of contrasting a widespread hypothesis, according to which immigrant women could follow up on pregnancy.
This would cause an increase in caesarean sections or complications and therefore make the process more expensive, studies in other countries suggest.
But the results of the current study show that there are no differences in the cost of childbirth depending on the mother's origin, perhaps because, contrary to what was thought, they do follow up on the appropriate pregnancy. Neither do more C-sections occur nor do they have more infants with complications.
The news would be great if it wasn't because the percentage of caesarean sections is still very high, of 27% in both groups, well above the WHO recommendations.
What makes delivery more expensive
There are two elements that are directly related to a relevant increase in cost.
The type of delivery, which alone accounts for more than 50% of the total cost of birth, with an average of 2,105 euros for normal vaginal deliveries and 3,227 euros on average in the case of caesarean sections. We see that according to this work, prices have increased with respect to what we mentioned a while ago, that a C-section cost almost twice as much as a vaginal delivery (1,600 versus 3,000 euros).
If the baby requires hospital admission It can be up to more than 20% of the cost, reaching an average of 1,357 euros in the case of babies born through caesarean section.
The economic calculation carried out goes beyond the health expenses associated with childbirth itself, because as we have seen, the costs involved from the nine months of pregnancy to the three months of the child are considered.
It is important to highlight that, given the impact of caesarean sections on the overall cost of birth, the authors recommend taking into account their high cost when deciding whether or not to carry out this type of intervention, adding one more voice to those that we proclaim the need to reduce the rate of caesarean sections in Spain.
The study, entitled "Descriptive analysis of childbirth healthcare costs in an area with high levels of immigration in Spain" ("Descriptive analysis of childbirth costs in an area with high levels of immigration in Spain") can be consulted online from the web from BioMedCentral.
The conclusions that have made us known the money that a childbirth costs in Spain They are one more reason to try to stop unnecessary expenses in childbirth during economic crisis, which also pose a risk to the health of the mother and the baby.
