Florida Ranks Among Worst States To Have A Baby: Study

BRADENTON, FL — With August being the most popular month for baby births in the United States, a new study by personal finance website WalletHub ranked the best states for parents and their newborns. Spoiler reveal: Florida didn't do very well.

Out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Sunshine State ranked as the ninth worst state in 2019’s Best & Worst States to Have a Baby. That's before even the first dirty diaper had to be changed.

"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 30 key measures of cost, health care accessibility and baby-friendliness," penned the website in releasing its findings on Monday. "The data set ranges from hospital conventional-delivery charges to annual average infant-care costs to pediatricians per capita."

The study selected Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Minnesota as the best states in the country for parents and their newborns.

August had the most births of any month in 2018 with 344,750, according to the National Center for Health Statistics within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The next highest number of births occurred in July with 329,009 followed by 326,778 in October and 322,772 in September.

Here are the categories that contributed to Florida's low score (1=Best; 25=Average), according to WalletHub:

• 34th – Florida Hospital Cesarean-Delivery Charges
• 34th – Florida Hospital Conventional-Delivery Charges
• 24th – Florida Avg. Annual Cost of Early Child Care
• 28th – Florida Infant Mortality Rate
• 34th – Florida Rate of Low Birth-Weight
• 34th – Florida Midwives & OB-GYNs per Capita
• 16th – Florida Pediatricians and Family Doctors per Capita
• 27th –Florida Child-Care Centers per Capita
• 21st – Florida Parental-Leave Policy Score

On the bright side, eight other states scored worse than Florida, including Mississippi (51st,) Alabama (50th), South Carolina (49th), Louisiana (48th), Oklahoma (47th), Georgia (46th), Arkansas (45th) and Nevada (44th).