With the average conventional birth costing over $2,600 for mothers with insurance and nearly $15,000 for mothers without insurance, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2023’s Best & Worst States to Have a Baby, as well as expert commentary.
To determine the most ideal places in the U.S. for parents and their newborns, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 31 key measures of cost, health care accessibility and baby-friendliness. The data set ranges from hospital conventional-delivery charges to annual average infant-care costs to pediatricians per capita. Below are the findings:
| Best States to Have a Baby | Worst States to Have a Baby |
| 1. Massachusetts | 42. Florida |
| 2. Minnesota | 43. Nevada |
| 3. Vermont | 44. Oklahoma |
| 4. Rhode Island | 45. Arkansas |
| 5. North Dakota | 46. Georgia |
| 6. New Hampshire | 47. West Virginia |
| 7. Iowa | 48. Louisiana |
| 8. Utah | 49. South Carolina |
| 9. Connecticut | 50. Alabama |
| 10. Washington | 51. Mississippi |
