How much does a home birth cost?
Let’s say that someone wants to have a nice comfy take home pay of $50k a year, and business costs are that much again, for a midwifery business (self employed, work from home office type thing). That’s $100k turnover that needs to happen. A midwife might opt to take 1 or maybe two births per month, and offer antenatal visits and follow up visits, as well as the birth, so that’s 24 clients a year. So if a midwife charges less than $4,200 per birth, how does she earn money and run a business?
I’m not saying that this is a reasonable cost - I actually think that birth should be free (backed by Medicare and/or health insurance if needs be) and really, at the moment, if it were a choice between paying that kind of money for a homebirth or birthing for free in a hospital, I know which I’d have to choose.
Oh you noticed that the baby bonus and the rough cost of a home birth are similar? How unusual! What precisely is the baby bonus for? Is it for the best birth possible? A new TV? More time at home with bub, for either/both parents? An upgraded car? No one seems to know for sure. If you have to pay upfront for the services of a homebirth midwife, then the baby bonus would seem a long time coming. I personally would not work for money afterwards as costs would start from day 1, and there would potentially be the situation where payment was withheld due to a less than perfect outcome, despite services having been rendered.
If you ask around in Sydney, apparently these costs are about right. Travel may or may not be included, and personally I can see why it would be extra on top of that. But in Adelaide, it’s not that expensive and that means only on thing - midwives aren’t charging enough. Midwives seem to follow a calling to this field and there’s an expectation that they do it for love, not money. Some women are reluctant to put a price on their time as well, and feel strange charging for their services.
It brings to mind the discussions I was having a while ago in a different circle about crafts (knitting and soapmaking come to mind) where the crafters are mostly female, and mostly reluctant to charge for their products. The difference I guess is that while handmade soap, or handknitted scarves, are expensive for a reason, substitutes exist that people can delude themselves about as being adequate.
Midwife-assisted births on the other hand, can’t be substituted for without you noticing.
