Nebraska Is the Most Expensive State to Have a Child

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 22, 10:21AM EST

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Nebraska Is the Most Expensive State to Have a Child — © Davel5957 / iStock via Getty Images

Having a baby is expensive. Long before the delivery itself, there are doctor visits, tests, scans, and more. After the delivery, a pediatrician needs to examine the newborn and follow its development. In between, there is the cost of delivery, which often includes a stay at the hospital for two days or longer. The overall cost depends on many factors, including where the childbirth takes place, and Nebraska is the most expensive state to have a child. (Of course, childbirth is just the beginning of expenses that span a child’s life, even well into adulthood. Here are the most expensive colleges in every state.)

The national average cost of childbirth without insurance is a staggering $18,865, based on data from Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker 2022. The cost of giving birth also depends on the type of birth, with cesarean births costing considerably more than vaginal births. And of course, insurance cuts the cost significantly. (Here are 10 jobs that make parenting manageable.)

Based on data from Peterson-KFF published in Forbes, parents in Nebraska pay the highest out-of-pocket costs for childbirth, at $2,685, or 41% more than the national average. The cost for vaginal births is $2,670, the cost for C-sections is $2,718. For the 7.1% of the population who is uninsured in the state, those costs would be considerably higher.

It does not seem the high costs in Nebraska have improved maternal and infant health. In fact, there were 138 infant deaths in the state in 2020, or 5.7 deaths per 1,000 live births – the 22nd highest rate of the 45 states with data, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And there were 21 maternal deaths between 2018 and 2020, or 28.2 per 100,000 live births – the ninth highest rate of 29 states with data.

See 24/7 Wall St.’s list of the most expensive states to have a child.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.