“Costs of Birth” by Mary Falardeau, student intern

     Just this week, the Today Show made a post on Facebook entitled “What's it cost to have a baby in a hospital in California? The answer may shock you.” The answer was truly outrageous: the average costs for delivering one child into the world in a California hospital are between $3,000 and $37,000! According to the cited UCSF study, “For a simple, uncomplicated vaginal delivery, prices ranged from $3,296 to $37,227. For a C-section, women were billed between $8,312 and nearly $71,000.”  However, the increased fee wasn’t necessarily for extended hospital stays. The researchers looked at a variety of hospitals, types of visits, and insurance companies. They also recommended asking about costs before care starts, as each hospital determines its own price, and people often overestimate the amount that will be covered by insurance.

     What the article doesn’t address is the cost-effectiveness of home birth. According to AmericanPregnancy.org, “an average uncomplicated vaginal birth costs about 60% less in a home than in a hospital.” The average midwife-based home birth costs about $2,000 to $3,000. For some midwives, this fee covers all of the pre-birth consultations, as well, which can present significant savings. 

Home births are certainly not for everyone.  Some women are choosing midwife-assisted births in hospitals that have birthing centers with many holistic options such as water birthing rooms. According to a January 2013 study by the American Association of Birth Centers, “women who receive care at midwife-led birth centers incur lower medical costs and are less likely to have cesarean births compared to women who give birth at hospitals.” The study findings suggest that “the use of birth centers also decreases direct and indirect costs to the US health care system. Given lower costs in the birth center setting, as well as low rates of cesarean birth, the 15,574 births in this study may have saved more than $30 million in facility costs alone based on Medicare/Medicaid rates, not including additional savings in costs of additional providers, anesthesia, and newborn care in hospital settings.”

     

No matter what your birth plan entails, it’s important to do your homework, and always ask questions regarding your care, what’s necessary versus a luxury, and about any associated costs.

Resources

http://www.today.com/health/whats-it-cost-have-baby-try-3-000-or-37-2D11936130

http://americanpregnancy.org/labornbirth/homebirth.html

http://enjoybirth.com/blog/2011/08/17/financing-a-homebirth-vs-hospital-birth/

http://www.birthcenters.org/content/new-study-shows-midwife-led-birth-centers-improve-outcomes-and-lower-health-care-costs

Muscles and Maximum Performance by Zach Simkins, student intern

          Our body is composed of 606 muscles, and hundreds of tendons that anchor to various muscles, to create this beautiful thing we call motion. Some people, like myself, choose to utilize motion for sports! Whether it is triathlons, hockey, rugby, weightlifting, dance or any other pursuit, our ability to coordinate movements is what makes us successful and less likely to suffer an injury. That is why it is so important to have your biomechanics evaluated for current or potential problems that will lead to early breakdown of joints, chronic injury and limited or decreased performance.

          There are an endless number of reasons why we become subluxated with muscles being a double edged sword. Muscles can either enhance our ability to perform, move and be pain free or they can become a roadblock on our way to achieving maximum health. If you have ever had a rolled ankle, tweaked hamstring, or more-sore-than-it-should-be shoulder, you know what it feels like to be at the mercy of your muscles. But consider this, how did your body adapt after you started feeling better? Sure you may no longer be in terrible pain but how did your body compensate for having a limp, torn muscle or bad posture while you recovered?

            Consider this analogy, if someone were to tug on the bottom of your shirt, where would you feel it? You might feel something where it’s being tugged but you are actually more likely to feel it on the complete opposite side of your shirt! The body works in the same way, since like a shirt, all of our bones and muscles are interconnected. Using this logic, that pain in your hip could very well be due to an old ankle sprain that “healed” itself but caused your body to compensate by shifting your hip into a position that is less than optimal.

          Using a myriad of assessment tools and techniques, namely one specifically designed for athletes called Global Assessment, we can identify your areas of strength as well as weakness to focus our attention towards injury prevention and maximizing your performance. As a Sports Certified Chiropractor, Dr Rubin and his interns are equipped to assess all aspects of the human frame, including the nervous, skeletal and muscular systems.