Babies bring joy and laughter into a home. They also bring bills.
Where you live can determine how big those bills will be, even if you have insurance. According to WalletHub, expenses can vary significantly, considering the wide disparities in cost of living. They can also differ from one pregnancy to another, given that some women experience complications.
But there’s more to think about than just cost. Some states provide better quality health care services and better environments in which to care for children.
To determine 2021′s best and worst states to have a baby, the financial website compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across four key dimensions: cost, health care, baby friendliness and family friendliness.
WalletHub then evaluated those dimensions using 31 relevant metrics, each graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for expectant parents and newborns.
Georgia’s ranking likely won’t make pregnant couples very happy. The Peach State finished 43rd, with a score of just 36.30.
In each dimension, we finished:
- Cost: 30th
- Health care: 42nd
- Baby friendliness: 42nd
- Family friendliness: 40th
Georgia also ranked:
- 47th – Infant mortality rate: 47th
- 48th – Rate of low birth weight: 48th
- 24th – Midwives and OB-GYNs per capita: 24th
- 45th – Pediatricians and family medicine physicians per capita: 45th
- 38th – Child care centers per capita: 38th
- 34th – Parental leave policy score: 34th
- Positive COVID-19 testing rate in the past week: 22nd
“Having a child is expensive in and of itself. What I have observed in my research is that the single factor that is likely to cause poverty is having children,” said Elena Delavega, Ph.D., and MSW program director and associate professor at the School of Social Work at University of Memphis. “In modern society, children are liabilities. We need children, but we place the entire burden of raising the future of society on parents who may not have all the support they need. We need to return to see children as the future we all need.”
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