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I on the other hand would have loved to have my baby in england, everyone I know who had a baby there with the exception one person had a natural med free birth, they dont have outrageous charges for having a baby plus if you actually work there you get 6-9 months off from work.

@travelgirl1: I'm an american expat living in England and I had my baby at Addenbrooke's in Cambridge on the NHS. My water broke and I needed to be induced and when they came in to talk to me about starting the pitocin/syntocinon they looked me dead in the eye and offered to do an epidural at the same time. I wanted a med free birth, but due to a heart condition I was diagnosed with at 36 week, I wasn't allowed to. They offered me an epidural, gas and air and pill narcotics with no guilt or anything.

I actually really enjoyed my experience there. The ward? Yeah, that kind of sucks, but I felt like the docs and midwives were all pretty fabulous.

I'm an American living in Sweden and I wouldn't want to have a kid anywhere else! The environment is really family friendly and the benefits are second to none. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for LO.

All my prenatal appointments, delivery, and baby appointments were covered. DH and I paid very little for the hospital stay - it was so little it might as well have been free. Although my birth was traumatic, there were no complications and my LO is healthy. So far, I really like all the scheduled check-ups for her (first one was an at home visit, then every 2 weeks for the first 2 months). It's done at a local baby clinic so no worries of old, sick people hanging around.

If there's a baby emergency, all DH has to do is put up a piece of paper on his door at work and it's automatically understood. He has great paternity leave benefits, and LO gets a small amount from the city every month (every baby gets this until they're 16 y/o, then they get a little for studying). I can go on. Everything helps alleviate some of the stresses of being new parent.

I gave birth here in Tokyo and I'm so happy we were here. Our first baby was born with Trisomy 18 and spent 9 months in NICU. Our medical team was incredible and super supportive. We had a bit of a language barrier but they tried so hard to make sure we understood everything. The entire time he was in NICU, we only got billed for the diapers he used. Everything else was paid for by the Japanese National Health Insurance.
We chose to go to the same hospital for our second baby. Because the staff knew our history, they took extra care with my second pregnancy, doing every test to make sure everything was ok. So yes, we are extremely happy I gave birth in Japan.

Yup, I gave birth in Switzerland.

eta: I should also mention that healthcare in Switzerland is not free, health insurance is mandatory for all people living here, so the companies have plans at different price points. Considering we pay over $600 a month for three of us, the care is excellent. Very little is out of pocket.

I'm a Brit, who will be giving birth in Florida. Besides England and the US, I have also lived in Canada - so am familiar with all three systems.

The original plan was to move back to England before TTC - Since the birth would be a lot cheaper, and we planned on settling there anyway. Things didn't go to plan.
I'm happy with my doctors and experience so far, but absolutely not the cost.

I don't want to start a political debate, because they never end well - But I don't believe basic healthcare should come with a cost (other than taxes).

Also, am hating the maternity leave options here in the US. Basically everyone is expecting me to return to work 12 weeks after the birth (after the UNPAID FMLA). Yet our European employees get up to a year off at partial pay. UGH.

@travelgirl1: I'm from Northampton. I agree that out of the three, Canada probably has the best healthcare system for my needs.

I want to give birth somewhere with national health care!!!!

I'll be doing it in Montana, so there's no real choice of hospitals. Part of me wishes that I was in a bigger city to have more of a choice of providers, and wouldn't have to be airlifted if something goes wrong, but what can you do? The place actually looks pretty nice - birth/recovery rooms are the same, jacuzzi tubs, fold out bed for husband, beautiful views. And pretty much no chance of sharing a room since they have about 30 babies a month there and have 9 rooms!

My biggest concern is that I'll go into labor during a blizzard and won't be able to get to the hospital in time (January baby). Luckily I'm only a few miles away and my downstairs neighbor is a paramedic.

I'm very happy with my health care providers and the place I plan to give birth, just not the maternal health care system here in the US.

We have to pay out of pocket for our homebirth midwives and *hope* that DH's health plan will partially cover the cost. He works for the area health care company and has a generally excellent health care package, but a birth that should be extremely low cost/low risk to insurers is made expensive for us.

If for any reason we needed to transfer out of our midwives' care, there would be no one on standby at the local hospital because shared care and a transfer system is nonexistent here.

I'm not the least bit nervous about giving birth at home. What makes me nervous is the lack of health care coverage and the poor communication between midwives and doctors. The fact that midwife care is so shunned from "traditional" US obstetrics is disturbing. And disturbingly unsafe.

I don't know all the specifics, but having a baby in Canada or Sweden seem to be really good!

I know that in the U.S. (and California for us specifically) the costs can range so much depending on your insurance plan and employer. You can pay $0 out-of-pocket to something like 50% of your total cost?! Yikes! So far, I think we will have to pay something like $5,000 for the delivery and I'm not sure if that includes something like 20% co-pay? Honestly, I don't want to know and just want to let DH handle it all!

Like @Minnie_Girl, I'm happy with the care I have for myself, but not the medical system in the USA as a whole.

If I end of having to transfer to a hospital, I'll be wishing I was in the UK or South Africa, but that's just not possible for this pregnancy.

Most likely my next birth will be at a birth center in South Africa.

I'm another Canadian who had an awesome expierence with everything and am so happy to have the options I did and my full year maternity leave!

I hate our maternal healthcare here in the states.... hate hate hate it! No I don't hate medical technology I just hate our system & perspective on them and their use. So since moving overseas to a place where they believe in the capabilities of a woman's body & don't frivolously use interventions isn't an option I decided to stay the heck out of the hospital and planned a homebirth.

Yup NY, NY in the best hospital in NY! If anything went wrong, there was a state of the art NICU, and my OB is the head of the dept there.

@jedeve: I thought you were in Missoula but the hospital must be bigger than that? Are you outside the city? What described sounds just like Helena's setup!