Does your organization’s health insurance cover home births?
On the rise during the pandemic, home births are especially popular among Black women, but many insurance providers do not seem supportive of the trend.
The number of U.S. births has been declining every year since 2008—2014 being the one exception—according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While the Census Bureau indicates it may be too soon to draw broad conclusions about the full impacts of the pandemic on birth trends, it does appear likely the pandemic caused at minimum a temporary drop in the birth rate. Another pandemic side effect related to pregnancy is the growing popularity of home births.
Popularity in this case is a relative term, considering 98% of births still happen in hospitals. But a report from the National Vital Statistics System, a division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, finds that the percentage of births at home rose from 1.03% (38,506) in 2019 to 1.26% (45,646) in 2020, a 22% increase.
The report points to three possible causes for this increase:
Risk of maternal mortality for Black women
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Tags: COVID-19, DE&I, health insurance, maternity, safety, women's health
