What has become of the $100 baby?

[alma]

When my first baby was born, i had one of the best doctors in town for 9 months of excellent care
-- for $50!

The hospital cost was also $50 for 13 days in a room with two other women. We were not alowed to get out of bed at all for several days.

That was in the 1940s. My young husband was making $22 a week, and we were able to pay for it all ourselves.

We didn't need to ask anyone for help.

What has happened to change all of that.

A man could pay for a large family with only one job, and most women could stay home to care for the children, and apply herself to making a healthy and happy home and family.

Where did it all go?

Where have our mothers and grandmothers gone?
Where are our fathers gone?
--and where are our innocent children?

--and he saddest part is that no one seems to care.
alma

[bookwormom]

they all have died and only a few are left to remember, and they will be gone soon, too. You know what we have now to replace the old standards. Maybe someone will have a revolutionary new thought sometime in the distant future, of women staying home to raise their own children and to create a happy home for her family, and a man being able to support them with one job.

[CarolAnn]

I was a FIFTY THREE dollar baby. And grew up hearing my mom tell me I cost more than the other five kids put together, because I was the only one born in a hospital!

And it was the WORST care she got of all births. The doc came in wearing a tux, and was ticked off that he'd had to leave his party. When the afterbirth didn't come fast enough, he PUNCHED her in the stomach. If he was still alive, I'd still like to give him a piece of my mind about that one! :P

[Southern_Gent]

Actually, the $100 baby still exists, just not in this country. In some of the South American countries I've visited, $100 will get you 9 months of prenatal care and delivery, complete with a few days of stay time in the hospital. Of course, $100 may equate to a few weeks to a month's worth of pay, depending on one's job status, but that's not so bad when considered in the grand scheme of things.

[momma_to_seven_chi]

It is more like fifty thousand dollar babies in many cases now. Half of all the babies born in the US are C-section. Disgusting. In some European nations with HIGHER infant survival rates the section rates are less than ten percent.
The WHO says the optimum section rate for healthy births should be between five and ten percent.

Some doctors don't think God knew what he was doing when he created women to give birth. I guess they think they can do it better with a huge price tag.