A new study presents how expensive it is to have babies in terms of medical expenses. Their calculations revealed that it will cost about $21,000 for single birth, $105,000 for twins, $400,000 for triplets, and so on.
Researchers from the Global Health Outcomes at Merck & Co. led by Dr. Dongmu Zhang provided approximate medical expenses from giving birth to multiple babies, which is associated to medically assisted reproduction like In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
The team analyzed data which counts for almost 438,000 deliveries during January 2005 to September 2010. According to the records, around 97 percent of the deliveries were single babies while the remaining three percent are multiple deliveries.
"On average, combined all-cause healthcare expenses for mothers with twins or higher-order multiple births were about five and 20 times more expensive, respectively, than singleton delivery," Zhang said in a statement.
Their computation includes the medical expenses covering the mother's treatment 27 weeks prior delivery date and a month after delivery, as well as the expenses of the baby from birth until one year old.
It may seem that the costs are too high but the researchers clarified that a big fraction of it were because of the C-section deliveries, extended confinement in the hospitals as well as higher rates of admission and longer days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), especially for multiple births.
Based on their analysis, 60 percent of the costs for single deliveries are for the mother's treatment. However for two babies and above deliveries, the costs for the care of the babies eat as much as 70 to 85 percent of the total medical bills.
To avoid multiple deliveries, the scientists recommended to lessen the embryo quantity transferred via IVF. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, if the mother is under 35 years old, she could opt to have 1-2 embryos; if 35-37 years old, two embryos; if 38-40 three embryos and if 41-42 years old five embryos transferred under the IVF procedure.
The study was published in the Nov. 11 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
