It costs less than $60 to have a baby in Finland. How?

Authored by cbsnews.com and submitted by maxwellhill
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In this installment of "CBS This Morning's" four-part series, The World of Mothers, we take a look at what motherhood is like in Finland. The Scandinavian country is consistently ranked one of the best places to be a mom and praised for its low infant and mother mortality rates, paid maternity leave and healthcare and daycare systems.

Finland's healthcare system has helped give it the lowest maternal death rate in the world -- and it's available to everyone for next to nothing.

Dr. Aydin Tekay is the chief physician at a labor ward in Finland where every mother there gets a private room and even the option of a water birth. The cost? Less than $100 euros, and almost 50 percent of which they'll get back as reimbursement. That means it costs less than $60 to have a baby, compared with the U.S. where the average natural birth costs over $12,000 and insurance doesn't cover all of it. Tekay said there's no reason the U.S. can't replicate what Finland is doing. He blames U.S. politics.

The maternal death rate in the U.S. has nearly doubled over the last three decades; in Finland they've cut it in half.

At a play group in Helsinki, we met Laura Smith from Detroit who's living there with her Finnish husband and their 10-month-old baby Ella. Maternal death rates are even higher for African American women, one of the reasons Laura chose to have Ella in Finland instead of back home.

"My concerns mattered, my voice mattered. They saw me, they took care of me no matter what I look like and that's something I couldn't be certain about in the States," Smith said.

Mother and baby are also entitled to free check-ups and when Ella goes to day care, that'll cost less than $100 per week. It's all paid for with tax dollars. The wealthy hand over much more in Finland than the U.S. Annika Saarikko, the minister for family affairs in Finland, said the Finn's don't mind the high taxes, they're used to the system.

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That system began in the 1930s when Finland started handing out free baby boxes to new families, filled with basic necessities. The government is still giving out those boxes, which double as a makeshift crib.

Finland also wants parents to spend time with their babies. Mothers are guaranteed around four months paid maternity leave by law and parents can then split another six months paid parental leave – though not at the same time.

Nobody we spoke to in Finland bragged about their success. They're all trying to improve things even more, like making childbirth even safer, and encouraging fathers to take longer paternity leave.

Finland's minister for family affairs is also trying to figure out how to encourage more Finns to have babies because despite all the benefits, the birth rate in Finland is declining.

ResearchExchange on March 5th, 2019 at 17:59 UTC »

American in Canada here.

Upcoming birth will be $0 out of pocket. Based on the first birth we had, we'll get a private room and will be allowed to decide whether we want to stay overnight even if it's not medically necessary.

Wife and I have to be annoyed at something, though, so we've chosen to be peeved about a lack of parking.

Magicamelofdoom on March 5th, 2019 at 17:51 UTC »

Finland resident here:

Literally just got the bill for my first child and it was €244. I think about €100 was for the family suite we chose to stay in at the hospital. And the rest was for treatment. It actually cost €120 for us to park at the hospital for two nights.

I had an amazing birth experience, staff was wonderful, had my own extremely large delivery room, however the food did suck :p. 10/10 would deliver again in Finland.

Sneakymcsneakface on March 5th, 2019 at 16:52 UTC »

They also get a care package with necessities and clothes for the baby.