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Having a baby can be expensive, what with hospital, obstetrics and other health fees adding up as the week’s progress. That’s why having health insurance to cover your pregnancy is a smart move, especially considering that around 13% of women who get pregnant each year don’t have adequate coverage.

It has been estimated that the average cost of prenatal care and delivery is around $6,000 to $8,000 for a healthy pregnancy with no complications. Of course these costs would increase dramatically for high risk pregnancies.

You should start looking into whether your health fund provides pregnancy insurance before you even think about conceiving to ensure that you get the full coverage that you will need. That’s because many policies will not cover you for a pre-existing condition (which means they won’t cover you if you are already pregnant before you join). Even though laws such as HIPAA state that health insurers cannot consider pregnancy a preexisting condition there are still loopholes that could deny pregnant women fair coverage if they change plans or move jobs while pregnant.

There are wide variety of health insurance providers that cover pregnancy and prenatal care for you and your baby and most of these are included as part of you or your partner’s employment package.

If you do get pregnant and don’t have health insurance then you still have options. Many local hospitals will allow you payment plans and many have their own maternity programs and OBGYN clinics which can significantly lower your costs to less than half what it would normally cost.

And there are government funded programs such s Medicaid that can provide assistance for women and families on low incomes to help cover expenses.

Other wonderful programs that provide for mothers without insurance include such organizations like Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) and Women’s Infants and Children (WIC) which can help financially to ensure that both you and your baby remain healthy. Check with your local health department to see what services they can provide you.

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