this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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childfree
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I think people grossly overestimate the cost of having children. Speaking for Europe though.
Will from what I understand the cost of birth alone starts at 80k in medical debt for Americans? This is not counting 9 months of prebirth care, child caring items like bed and clothes, and also Im a man with no intention of having a child so 80k might be slightly off
If you have halfway decent insurance (which not everyone does of course) it is not particularly expensive out of pocket. The bill from the hospital is huge though, yes, but it gets picked up with insurance.
A "funny" feature of US healthcare is that it may be cheaper to get pregnant in November-February or so, because then the bulk of the healthcare will take place in one year and you'll meet any out of pocket max in one year only. Giving birth in January, on the other hand, means you probably meet your out of pocket twice
once for pregnancy, once for birth.