Hospital Delivery Charges Significantly Higher When Babies Conceived Through Assisted Reproductive Technologies
By Miriam Zoll,
Reporting on Health
| 03. 04. 2014
A new study published in the Journal of Perinatology [1] online has found that from 2009-2011 in California, hospital delivery charges associated with babies born through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) or artificial insemination (AI) were significantly higher than charges for babies born through natural conception –– in some cases exceeding $1.2 million per infant.
The retrospective study was based on 2009-2011 data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development and conducted by researchers from the Loma Linda University School of Medicine.
In 2011, statewide average hospital charges for maternity care for women who delivered ART/AI infants were almost fifty percent higher than fees for non-ART infants born late preterm or at term––$35,768 compared to $18,654. The higher charges are linked to a 24- to 27-fold increase across California of multiple births, and significantly higher rates of preterm births, lower birth weights, fetal anomalies and stillbirth, among infants born through ART/AI. In 2009, there were 5,710 ART/AI live births in California and 1,718 of these births -- or 30.1 percent –– were multiple births consisting of twins, triplets...
Related Articles
By Pallab Gosh and Gwyndaf Hughes, BBC News | 06.26.2025
Work has begun on a controversial project to create the building blocks of human life from scratch, in what is believed to be a world first.
The research has been taboo until now because of concerns it could lead to...
Since the “CRISPR babies” scandal in 2018, no additional genetically modified babies are known to have been born. Now several techno-enthusiastic billionaires are setting up privately funded companies to genetically edit human embryos, with the explicit intention of creating genetically modified children.
Heritable genome editing remains prohibited by policies in the overwhelming majority of countries that have any relevant policy, and by a binding European treaty. Support for keeping it legally off limits is widespread, including among scientists...
By Rhys Blakely, The Times | 06.24.2025
Scientists have created fertile mice from male genetic material alone, a breakthrough that could one day open the door to human babies who inherit their genes from two fathers.
The experiment, led by Professor Yanchang Wei at Shanghai Jiao Tong...
By Ron Leuty, San Francisco Business Times | 06.16.2025
23andMe's two-step sale to a nonprofit led by former CEO Anne Wojcicki is nothing more than a dance around California's genetic privacy law, state Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a filing late Monday, one day before a judge will...
