Want To Save Money? Ricki Lake Says Have Your Baby At Home.

Ricki Lake’s 2007 documentary, The Business of Being Born, (TWX) exposes more of the actress and former talk show host than any of her roles yet. That’s because the celebrity delivers her second child, Owen, in a bathtub in the middle of her Manhattan apartment in an attempt to draw attention to the wonders of home birth.

Lake, 38, touts the natural advantages of home birth, including lower cesarean and episiotomy rates. (U.S. hospitals have a 31% cesarean section rate, whereas out-of-hospital midwives rate hovers around 4%.) Over the last 10 years, the number of women opting for homebirth has doubled, but homebirths still only account for about 8% of U.S. deliveries. And while women might enjoy the comfort of the midwife over a doctor for the holistic approach, delivering in the comfort of your own home has major monetary advantages as well.

(But no matter how you choose to have a baby best to be prepared. Please see MainStreet’s Guide to Having a Baby, which includes how-to’s on such topics as Leveraging Your Company’s Benefits Package, Investing For College, and Teaching Your Children Financial Literacy.)

“Hopefully with my message about alternatives in birthing, people can save money having a natural birth outside of a hospital,” Lake told Mainstreet. “My home birth was about the third of the price of what it would be in a hospital. Because there aren’t administrative fees, hospital fees and all the extra costs. Of course, sometimes it’s necessary and you need a hospital, but a lot of time you don’t.”
Anne Margolis, a nurse-midwife in Suffern, N.Y. agrees. “It’s a huge money savings, considering a hospital birth can cost $20,000 without complications,” she says. “A home birth ranges between $5000 and $7000 including everything. In a hospital everything from anesthesia, epidurals, medications and then cesareans significantly raise the bill.”

A study published in the Journal of Nurse-Midwifery, entitled the “Cost Effectiveness of Home Birth” found the average uncomplicated vaginal birth costs 68% less in a home than a hospital. “Even for the 40% of births covered by Medicaid, safe birthing alternatives that permit a reduction in the $150 billion Medicaid burden would allow the United States to devote more resources to other urgent priorities,” the study concluded.

If you decide to squat and deliver, you don’t have to forego insurance either. “Insurance companies like the pay for home birth because they’re saving thousands of dollars,” says Margolis. Each state has its own paperwork regarding homebirth. Some states, including New York, New Hampshire, mandate homebirths to be covered just as in a hospital. “Our price is all inclusive,” says Margolis. “It’s nine months of care, labor and delivery and six months of post-partum.”

But Lake cites an even cheaper home birth. “For me, my birth was $4000 from my first prenatal visit to my postpartum,” she says. “Four thousand dollars! It’s a bargain!”