And, they sent us home with a dozen cloth diapers, 6 bottles of water plus all the complimentary lotions, soaps, etc.

In the 60s, our family's health insurance was less than $15/month.

How far we've come...

Retailers used to provide them (loose, not stuck to a paper) for every item that was taxed. Kids would take them to school, and the school would exchange them for classroom supplies.

I think that was only for the first few years I was in school, in the early 50s.

compared to the actual cost now.

On average, U.S. hospital deliveries cost $3,500 per stay, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Add in prenatal, delivery-related and post-partum healthcare, and you're looking at an $8,802 tab, according to a Thomson Healthcare study for March of Dimes.

in NYC back then, for $45 a month.

Was about $150. And I had serious health complications and required a whole system blood transfusion. (Or whatever it's called when they replace all your original blood with new blood.)

It is the funniest thing you will ever see...an actual receipt for a human child, administrative costs of $7.00 CAN. in the '70's.

Needless to say, we have a lot of fun with that tid-bit..."you're only worth $7.00"...

My two children was born in the last century, my son in Denmark and my daughter in Russia. Both had very nice arrivals at hospitals - though the Russians gave the best care: The first weeks after birth every day there would be a home visit from either a doctor or a nurse. Free of all cost .