It’s not just the older generations who experienced affordable hospital stays after giving birth. One commenter shared a story about their grandparents’ bill from 1936, which totaled just $36. The family paid 50 cents a week until the bill was settled. Adjusted for inflation, that would be around $659 today—still a fraction of modern childbirth costs.

Other examples include a 1954 bill from North Dakota, where a couple was charged $99.84, including $2 for x-ray services. That would be around $938 today, and at the time, a manufacturing job paid around $71 per week. Another Reddit user shared their father’s birth bill from 1955, which was $87.65 for five days in the hospital—equivalent to about $830 today.

@krazysarai in case you were wondering how much it costs to have a baby💀😅 #birth #baby #hospital #hospitalbill #pregnancy #fyp #momtok ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

In stark contrast, a commenter noted that their wife’s recent seven-day hospital stay for childbirth cost a jaw-dropping $112,000. This difference raises an important question: if having a child cost as much in the past as it does today, would families have been able to afford having children at all?