How expensive is it to give birth in Belgium? I will give you the numbers.
First of all, I have to start this informative article by providing some personal details. My husband is a Belgian citizen, that has never had a hospitalization plan with his insurance. When we got married I was already pregnant with our daughter. Obviously, we could not apply for a hospitalization plan during my pregnancy…
From the first appointments to a doctor for a regular check-up, I started an excel file with all our expenses, including what we had to pay for analysis, visits to gynaecologists, everything up to the “delivery” moment (see below). Some per cent of all expenses during the 6 months of my pregnancy was covered by my husband’s insurance. It was unbelievable because from the start I was not sure whether to rely on it.
Below is an overview of my pregnancy starting from week sixteen. The system in Belgium works in a way that you come to see a specialist, pay for the visit and later on, you can get your entitled money back from the insurance company. The overall cost for the whole thing was 1,278 euros. That is how much money we had to put on the table. However, according to this overview around 67 per cent was covered by the insurance and that is a pretty big amount from the total 3,840 euro. Please bear in mind that this is the cost starting from week 16 when I just moved to Belgium. Expenses for the other weeks were in Kazakhstan, and that was another 500 euro, excluding insurance.
After my delivery, I was very lucky to get a private room, because normally I had to stay with another “mama-to-be”. However, since the hospital was new and at that moment there were 2–3 pregnant ladies, they allowed us to enjoy our stay to the fullest! Frankly speaking, we did not want to leave the hospital. It felt like we were on a mini-vacation. What a wonderful time we had!
So, if you happen to live in Belgium and are pregnant with a simple insurance program, please stay calm. I hope this article helps you to organise your budget and have a bit of clarity on the expenses you are going to have.
Good luck!
