Live birth is the most frequent reason for hospital stays, accounting for approximately 10 percent of all discharges from U.S. hospitals. But what are the costs associated with newborns? The following are statistics on hospital stays for newborns in 2011 from the Hospital Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #163.
- Live births have decreased from just over 4.2 million in 2008 to 3.8 million in 2011.
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- The average cost associated with newborn care was $3,200. Newborns born with complications were significantly more expensive, with preterm birth ($21,500), low birth weight ($27,200) and respiratory distress syndrome ($54,900) increasing the cost of care seven, nine and 18 times that of a normal birth.
- Proportion of total births covered by Medicaid increased from 40.5 percent in 2008 to 44.7 percent in 2011, though the absolute number of babies covered by Medicaid was the same.
- Medicaid births were more often preterm (8.9 percent versus 8.1 percent) or of babies with low birth weight (6.8 percent versus 5.5 percent) compared to babies covered by private insurance. Babies with respiratory distress syndrome (2.1 percent versus 1.9 percent) or who died after birth (0.3 percent versus 0.2 percent) occurred at similar rates between Medicaid beneficiaries and the privately insured.
- Birthrates were highest in the western U.S. (54.2 births per 1,000 women) and lowest in the Northeast (47.4 births per 1,000 women). Births in the Midwest and South were similar, at 40.4 and 49.3 births per 1,000 women, respectively.
- Aggregate costs by clinical outcome for newborns in 2011 include $6.9 billion for preterm births, $6.2 billion for low birth weight births, $4.1 billion for respiratory distress syndrome births and $300 million for births in which the newborn died shortly afterward.
- In total, the aggregate cost of births in the U.S. in 2011 was $12.2 billion.
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