More than half the pregnancies in the United States-1.5 million of them in 2010-are not planned. The unplanned pregnancies that occur each year in the United States cost taxpayers $21 billion. This money includes the medical costs of births, abortions, and miscarriages for unintended pregnancies.
This information is from an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization that works to advance reproductive health.
In 2010, 51% of all births in the United States were paid for by public insurance, either through Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, or the Indian Health Service. These agencies paid for 68% of all unplanned births, compared with 38% of planned births.
"On average, a publicly funded birth cost $12,770 in prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care and the first 12 months of infant care; care for months 13 to 60 cost, on average, another $7,947, for a total cost per birth of $20,716," the study reported. "To put these figures in perspective, in 2010, the federal and state governments together spent an average of $336 on unintended pregnancies for every woman aged 15 to44 in the country."
The Guttmacher Institute defined an unintended pregnancy as one that is either unwanted or mistimed. A mistimed pregnancy is one where the women did not want to become pregnant at that time. An intended pregnancy was defined as one that was desired at the time it occurred.
The percentage of births that are unplanned and their cost varies from state to state. Unplanned births are 31.8% of births in New Hampshire compared to 56.8% in Mississippi. Southern states tended to have the highest percentages of unplanned births and New England and West Coast states had the lowest.
More than 80% of unplanned births are paid for by public insurance in Georgia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.
The report notes that rates of unintended pregnancies are far higher among women living at or near the poverty level than among those with more income.
