Giving birth in Romania can be an extremely pleasant and safe experience. If you live here and want to use a private hospital, you probably want clear numbers right now – after all, private hospitals sound expensive, right?
Well, fortunately, that’s not necessarily the case, even though things have changed a lot since our son was born back in 2013, in a private hospital in Bucharest.
The short answer is that giving birth at a private hospital in Romania costs between €2,000 to €3,500, with variations based on the chosen clinic and package details.
However, that is just the base price and you will have additional expenses. We sure did, and the total cost of pregnancy and birth amounted to approximately €6,675 in our case. Here is exactly where that money went.
Note: I still believe that a private hospital is the better choice to state-owned hospitals, even though I am indeed regaining my faith in the Romanian healthcare system overall.
The Full Cost of the Maternity Package
The base price I mentioned covers the actual delivery and a brief hospital stay.
Giving birth naturally and spending a couple of nights at the hospital in a shared room is cheaper than a C-section with a single room and more nights spent at the hospital.
These packages also include various pre-natal and post-natal services, for both the baby and the mother.
We chose a clinic in Bucharest (Regina Maria, one of the largest and best known in the country), opting for a standard cesarean section package. I would go as far as saying that any private clinic with a solid resume works – Sanador, MedLife, or Medicover are also good choices.
Please note: I am not affiliated or sponsored by Regina Maria or any other clinic. I am sharing my personal experiences and opinions here!
Spending starts before getting pregnant
If you are like us and like to plan things in advance, then you will probably decide when it’s the best time to start trying for a baby (hey, good luck!): in our case, it was when we were confident that we are financially secure to both go through the pregnancy as well as have a stable income source to be sure that we can afford raising the little fellow.
Yup, it’s true, it shouldn’t be like that but if money is tight, you have to consider everything! And even when you do, expect hidden or unexpected costs to pop up!
And your spending on the pregnancy will begin before even getting pregnant: we both did full health checks before trying for a baby (no fertility tests, though – those are only necessary if after a few months there’s no luck) and it was good we did so because it was discovered that wifey had an infection and was put under treatment with antibiotics.
I couldn’t believe it that there were so many tests and check-ups and visits to the doctor when being pregnant… and they were not free!
We paid out of pocket for morphology ultrasounds at 12, 22, and 32 weeks. Then came the NIPT genetic test, my monthly OBGYN check-ups, and the standard TORCH blood panel.
These appointments added roughly €1,800 to the final bill, before my wife even set foot in the delivery ward.
This is still relatively cheap, compared to any other place you can think of (and the quality of services is good) – this is why medical tourism in Romania is also a thing.
Costs of giving birth in Romania (at a private clinic)
As I said, we chose to go for a private clinic in Bucharest. And the prices here are way lower than in Western Europe or the US, while the quality of service is top notch.
Really, it was an absolutely amazing experience for us and it felt like spending time in a hotel, not a hospital. It really makes you think about having more babies, ha!
The general costs for giving birth at a private maternity in Romania are between 2,500 – 3,500 Euros, depending on the clinic and type of package you are opting for.
Our costs for the “giving birth in Romania” part at the private clinic were $3326.
This was for the VIP package, which was a bit more expensive, but meant that my wife was in a single room (seen below) and also included some free consultations for her and a lot of extras for the baby.
This also included the actual C-section (as we opted against natural birth for various reasons): it was scheduled for a specific date, but our son was born prematurely and we didn’t have to pay anything extra.
The money spent also included 4 nights for my wife and I in a private room in the hospital after she gave birth, the collecting of stem cells and their storage for 12 months.
(We actually had to spend 2 nights more and therefore our costs have increased.).
It was an “all inclusive” stay, meaning that both wifey and baby had food, consumables and clothes for free. Plus 24h/day medical support but fortunately we didn’t need that for anything than the regulars (painkillers mostly for the wife).
Not to mention that this was a very modern clinic with the latest generation equipment and amazing staff.
For the dad, there was just a couch to sleep on and nothing else included. I chose not to sleep there as my wife was under constant care and never needed my help during the night, but I would spend my entire days there.
The place has a really nice cafeteria with all sorts of food options available and there are even more around the hospital itself.
All in all, it was a truly amazing experience. We were lucky that we opted for a private clinic, as our baby was born prematurely and needed some extra care and attention.
If we were to do it all over again, we’d choose the same clinic without a doubt. It does cost a lot of money (based on the wages here in Romania), but it’s worth it!
Postnatal Care and Baby Essentials
There are a lot of extra costs involved in this process, although not directly related to pregnancy and giving birth.
However, the baby needs a place to sleep in, needs some clothes, needs some consumables and so on: and all these costs do add up, especially the initial costs (for all consumables, furniture and whatnot for the nursery).
We were right not to buy any clothes (really, we haven’t bought a single clothing item for the first several months) as all our friends and relatives kept coming with the cutest things ever.
So my advice would be not to invest in clothes, you will certainly get more than you need from every friend you have!
What we had to spend money on was: a baby stroller, furniture and repainting for our baby’s nursery, a complete set of diapers, baby bottles, napkins, creams and some electrical devices (monitoring systems, humidifier, sterilizer, bottle warmer) and we bought all of them from Amazon (affiliate link).
As a brand, we went for Philips Avent and we are extremely pleased with the products – we decided to purchase them online because options were limited in our area back then, but things have changed now.
Total costs in this “miscellaneous” area: $1072
Total costs of pregnancy & giving birth in Romania
So if we are to draw the line and do the math, the total cost was:
€6,675
Out of these, as mentioned already, just under €3,500 were for the actual birth at the private hospital – the rest being “extras” mainly from the plethora of tests and visits to the doctor during the 9 months of pregnancy.
(and there may be some items that we simply forgot to list on our expense tracker because things can get really busy and crazy with a pregnant lady).
That is a lot of money in my books and I wasn’t really expecting us to spend that much.
But I am happy that we did: everything went as good as possible and even though there were unexpected things happening along the way – the most important being the fact that our son decided to come early – things are great now and all I can say is that those were money well spent.
The good thing about spending so much money is that I guarantee that when you hold your little baby in your arms and you look at their cute little face you will be as happy and satisfied as you can be. And that is priceless – that is what matters in the end.
If you have additional questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer.
I am a journalist and local expert who has been documenting life in Romania since 2013. Based in Constanta (after living in Bucharest and Drobeta Turnu Severin), I provide up-to-date, on-the-ground advice for expats and travelers. My articles are based on real life experiences and plenty of research – from paying Romanian bills to exploring the wild “Rawmania” countryside.
Hey. Very good article, thanks a lot. I am a foreigner, pregnant and living in Cluj, Romania and started to research hospitals for giving birth. Very useful information about the hospital, I am considering Regina Maria. How did you and your wife choose doctors for regular maternity check-ups and giving birth process? Did you get recommendations from friends or from the clinic?
My wife did her research online and found a doctor we were very happy with. Our son was born three weeks before the schedule, and during that time, our doctor was out of the country on vacation (she had told us about this months in advance).
She had already given us the contact of another one she recommended and she had already seen my wife once before the pre-term birth. So even if my wife didn’t give birth with the original doctor, we were both very satisfied with how the new one handled the situation and we actually still visit her every now and then with our son 🙂 So I would say that simply looking at the reviews of the doctors on the website should be enough – if you don’t have first hand recommendations from friends. And congrats for the pregnancy!