Posted on 10/04/2016 10:41:01 AM PDT by bkopto
Having a baby is expensive – nowhere more so than in the United States, where birth costs can run into the thousands of dollars.
But nothing could prepare this particular dad for what he claims was the most unexpected of extra costs: holding his child.
Yup: “skin-to-skin” – the act of holding your baby against your body after birth – is a chargeable part of the service, according to a photograph of a medical bill he posted on Reddit.
The man added: “During the C-section the nurse asked my wife if she would like to do skin to skin after the baby was born. Which of course anyone would say yes to. We just noticed it in the bill today and had a laugh. All these internet points I’ve been showered with make me feel better about the $40. This could be my proudest moment as a father. “The nurse let me hold the baby on my wife’s neck/chest. Even borrowed my camera to take a few pictures for us. Everyone involved in the process was great, and we had a positive experience. We just got a chuckle out of seeing that on the bill.”
Another user offered an explanation for the supposed charge, saying: “As a labour and delivery nurse, I can kind of explain this. I didn’t know that hospitals charged for it, but doing ‘skin to skin’ in the operating room requires an additional staff member to be present just to watch the baby.
“We used to take all babies to the nursery once the NICU team made sure everything was okay. “Skin to skin” in the OR (operating room) is a relatively new thing and requires a second Labour and Delivery RN to come in to the OR and make sure the baby is safe.”
IMO, this idiocy is spinoff from the litigious society we inhabit.
Ive got a friend down the street getting her indoor blow up pool ready for home birth #4.
...where birth costs can run into the thousands of dollars.
Yep. It’s best to avoid MSM (main stream medical) and just do it yourself, except for stuff like setting broken bones, which is surprisingly cheap.
Thanks Obama.... /s
What purpose does an inflatable kiddie pool serve while giving birth?
They do a warm water, underwater thing for the birth.
Do you have a handy home remedy for brain tumors?
Simple explanation. The charge is for additional nurse. Strange how people email or call the media for every little thing today! The need for attention is unreal!
“We used to take all babies to the nursery once the NICU team made sure everything was okay. “Skin to skin” in the OR (operating room) is a relatively new thing and requires a second Labour and Delivery RN to come in to the OR and make sure the baby is safe.”
Actually, kind of sad, I never had that skin to skin thing, now that I think about it. I’ve had 4 c sections and while they are still working on you, in the operating room, they present the baby wrapped up for a few cuddles then whisk him away for a while. I probably would have shelled out the $40. Oh well, I can still do skin to skin with the two littles. The teen and up will have to go on living without 20 minutes of hug with mama... somehow they will muddle through...
My family had a simple outpt procedure done. Hospital called a couple weeks prior, explaining that insurance wouldn't cover because of the deductible, and we could pay for the entire thing, in advance.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!", I said, approximately. "I'll put down 10%, which is a reasonable deposit to guarantee that we'll show up on time, as expected, and not waste the doc/nurse/procedure room time .... then you can bill me for the rest."
Been months and months since the procedure, and I've not heard a word on the bill, yet. Money is still sitting in my account, generating (meager) interest. Guess that they weren't hurting for it as much as they let on.
Pay in full, in advance. HA. What if the doc changed his mind on the procedure? Good luck getting that money back.
I recently had a baby.
Well, my wife did the actual excreting, but I suffered too. Those slick sofas that they let the new dads sleep on are not soft, and do not fold out. Also, they are sloped 1 or 2 degrees so as to shed liquids, so I was constantly falling off.
Anyway, when we got the bill there was a lot of this BS as stated in the article.
Also, the new baby viewing room now has the blinds permanently closed; you can no longer view new babies. Why? Because the risk of getting sued is too great. You see, when a ghetto person sees a single thing out of place (like a paper towel on the floor), they sue.
There are restrictive rules in place that are obviously due to past problems with those people.
In my value system ghetto people should have their own, separate hospitals.
OK, thanks. I just couldn’t envision the purpose, other than possibly making cleanup easier afterwards.
I went 12 years without health insurance. Paid for everything myself including one hospital visit for myself when I thought I had a heart issue (which turned into nothing at all) and one broken arm for my daughter
I think I sill came out about $40,000 ahead
For a hundred thousand years women dropped the children on a soft spot in the field, the cave, the hut, the lean-to, the tipi, the house, wherever, and picked them up, cleaned them off and started feeding them. Boy, things have changed!
Except for pregnancies and newborn children. My son was born premature and the bill for labor and 3 weeks in the NICU was $125,000.00.
Most of that bill was obviously from the stay in NICU, which was separate from the bill for childbirth. Without pre-Obamacare insurance I’d still be paying that off.
We are not mammals that live under water and naturally give birth there, and if there is a complication your friend down the street may expect her neighbors to foot the bill through higher premiums when there are complications and yes there often are complications. C-sections are very expensive as is any surgery.
and what do you suppose the infant and maternal mortality rates were 100,000 years ago?
At the beginning of the 20th century, for every 1000 live births, six to nine women in the United States died of pregnancy-related complications, and approximately 100 infants died before age 1 year (1,2). From 1915 through 1997, the infant mortality rate declined greater than 90% to 7.2 per 1000 live births, and from 1900 through 1997, the maternal mortality rate declined almost 99% to less than 0.1 reported death per 1000 live births (7.7 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1997)
Where I work, the baby is with the mother (and father, if he stays) from birth to discharge, unless there is a problem.
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