While this might seem like an easy question to answer it’s not black and white. The great thing about living in a large city like Chicago is there’s tons of options available to you, but this can also mean you have to learn about all your options.
The first big question is where do you ideally want to have your baby? You have three options in terms of location
Home birth: home birth is a great option for low risk pregnancies who are looking for a low intervention delivery
Birth center: also a great option for low risk pregnancies who are looking for a low intervention delivery, but for whatever reason don’t feel home birth is right for them
Hospital: hospitals can work for all birth choices. They’re the safest place for high risk pregnancies to deliver, the only option if you want an epidural and want or need a a surgical birth. That being said there are multiple good hospital options in Chicago for low intervention births
When narrowing down where you want to birth some questions you should be thinking about
1. What does your ideal birth look like?
2. Do you want pain medication?
If no, are there alternatives that are important to you? Some examples would be nitrous oxide gas or access to a labor tub.
If yes how early do you want an epidural? Some hospitals have faster anesthesia teams then others
3. Have you been told you are low risk or high risk? This can impact who your caregiver can be (midwife vs OB) and where you can birth.
4. If low to moderate risk do you want to see a midwife or an OB? And why one or the other?
5. Where/what does your insurance cover? If you pick to deliver somewhere out of network what does that fee look like?
Picking home birth: if you’re wanting a home birth or strongly considering it, it’s best to reach out to providers early in your pregnancy. Due to limited capacity practices tend to book up quickly. Not all home birth practices are the same. It’s a good idea to setup an interview, discuss your ideal birth and how their group practices. Some Chicagoland home birth practices are
Picking birth center birth: similar to home birth, reaching out sooner is better. Most birth centers have a low-cap on clients they can take to make sure the birth center always has a room open. We also suggest you tour the facility before committing. Feeling comfortable with your provider, but also the space is important. Chicagoland birth centers include
Picking hospital birth: there’s a dozen or more hospitals in the Chicagoland area. What was a great birth location for a friend may not be the best location for your birth. The number one thing we hear clients mention when looking at hospitals is how close it is to their home. While we don’t recommend picking a hospital an hour away without traffic this shouldn’t be the main factor in picking a location, especially if this is your first vaginal birth.
The first thing to look at is what hospitals are in network for your insurance. Hospital birth is very expensive if you pick an out of network facility (this $20-30k). Beyond that the things mentioned above the things we encourage clients to look at
1-Do they have options like a tub or nitrous if you’re wanting to avoid an epidural?
2-If you want an epidural how big is their anesthesia team, do they have round the clock coverage and what is the average wait?
3-What level of NICU do they have?
4-What are the rooms like? With covid many facilities don’t allow you to walk the halls any more so you’ll be doing most of your labor in the room.
5-What is their lactation support like?
The 2nd part of going to a hospital to birth is picking the right provider. Traditionally most births in the us are attended by an OBGYN, but most low-moderate risk pregnancies can be seen by a midwife. There isn’t a right or a wrong when it comes to seeing an OB vs midwife, but they can practice in different ways in terms of what they offer (like water birth), how long appointment times are and usually midwives have more experience with low intervention deliveries.