Your Guide to Choosing a Maternity Hospital

When I was preparing to give birth to my first child, my biggest priority was having my own room to recover in. I do not handle rooming with strangers well, and I knew I’d feel a million times more stressed, vulnerable and exhausted trying to recover postpartum in the same space as another mom and baby. When it came time to tour the hospital where my midwife practiced, asking if all moms were guaranteed their own private postpartum room was at the top of my list of questions.

Just like all moms-to-be have different birth plans and favorite ob-gyns, we all have varied preferences when picking a maternity hospital. “[Choosing a maternity hospital] isn’t one-size-fits-all,” says Trish Ware, RN, a birth educator and founder of Labor Nurse Mama. “Each pregnancy’s different and each mom has a different set of priorities.”

Whatever your biggest worries, concerns and priorities are, there’s probably a maternity hospital near you that can deliver (pun intended!), but it’s no easy task comparing your options. Here’s your guide for choosing a maternity hospital, including when you should take a hospital tour, what questions to ask—and what quality rankings really mean.

Key Takeaways

• When looking for maternity hospitals for delivery, it’s common to seek those with high-quality ratings, plenty of staffing, transparency around patient rights and a collaborative approach to labor and postpartum support.
• Take a tour of your maternity hospital to make sure it’s a good fit for you and be prepared to ask questions about what your birth and recovery experience will look like.
• Don’t forget to choose a provider and hospital that’s in-network with your insurance plan, and call ahead to get an estimated cost as well as information about co-pays and deductibles.

Annual Rankings: Best Maternity Hospitals in the US

For the last five years, U.S. News & World Report has published a list of the best maternity hospitals in the country. To create this list, it relies on self-reported data from hospitals regarding their patient outcomes and other quality measures, including C-section, breastfeeding and episiotomy rates. A score is determined based on the information reported and if a hospital is considered “high-performing,” it receives a ranking in the list.

The rankings are published online, and you can search the list in a number of different ways, including by city, state, zip code and practitioner (ob-gyn or midwife). The list itself defaults to “uncomplicated pregnancy,” but you can search the database for hospitals that handle more complex cases, like multiple pregnancies or moms with preeclampsia, by filtering for neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) or speciality practitioners or services.

While these rankings are a good resource, it’s important to remember that they’re still limited in what they can tell you about a maternity hospital. “To be included in these rankings, hospitals voluntarily submit their data for review,” explains Melissa Dennis, MD, an ob-gyn and the chief medical officer at Partum Health. “If a hospital doesn’t appear on a list of top hospitals, it means they either didn’t submit data or that they didn’t meet the threshold for being a top performer.” However, U.S. News & World Report doesn’t publicly make this distinction, she adds, so you shouldn’t assume that a hospital is a poor performer just because it’s not on a quality ratings list.

Best maternity hospitals in the US

U.S. News & World Report doesn’t publish specific rankings for maternity hospitals. Instead, it designates hospitals as “high-performing” when they meet particular standards and safety outcomes. That said, there are metropolitan areas that consistently come up as high-density for quality maternity care. For the 2025-2026 rankings, they include:

1. New York City
2. Los Angeles
3. Chicago
4. Riverside-San Bernardino, California
5. Dallas-Fort Worth
6. Philadelphia
7. Denver
8. San Francisco
9. St. Louis
10. Boston/San Diego/Washington, DC

Hospitals including Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and Cedars-Sinai in California consistently make the top rankings lists.

How Can I Find the Best Maternity Hospital Near Me?

To find the best maternity hospital near you, plan to spend some time researching your options, considering your needs—and asking a lot of questions. It’s not as simple as just looking up the highest-performing hospital closest to your house. It pays off to find one that checks off as many boxes as possible. Here’s how to start:

• Use a rankings list like the one published by U.S. News & World Report to see which hospitals in your area are considered top performers.
• Go to a hospital’s website and find out what resources and services are available to birthing and postpartum moms. For example, if a hospital offers a birthing tub or nitrous oxide to laboring moms, they’ll usually note it on their site. If you’re planning to breastfeed, look for a “Baby-Friendly” designation. “Baby-Friendly hospitals follow evidence-based practices that support breastfeeding in the early postpartum period, including immediate skin-to-skin contact after birth, rooming in, feeding on demand and avoiding routine formula supplementation unless it’s medically indicated,” says Amber Ginn, IBCLC, a lactation consultant and founder of The Latch Link.
• Check your insurance coverage to ensure the hospital and/or its providers are in-network with your plan.
• Find out who’ll provide your maternity care and who’ll actually deliver your baby when the time comes (it’s not always the same person!). Don’t overlook this just because the hospital has a good ranking. “I picked my health insurance specifically based on wanting to deliver at a specific hospital in my city, but what I didn’t think about was choosing a specific doctor,” says Linzay D., a mom of two in California. “I ended up not trusting my doctor [and] feeling resentful of her.”
• Read patient reviews or ask around in local mom groups to see how other moms felt about their birth experience.

Keep in mind that if you already have an ob-gyn or midwife caring for you during your pregnancy, your options will be limited to whichever hospital or hospitals they’re allowed to practice at. If you don’t want to deliver there, you’ll need to find a new prenatal provider.

What to Consider When Choosing a Maternity Hospital

When choosing maternity hospitals for delivery, there are a few important considerations, including:

Medical and safety

If you’re having an uncomplicated birth, you can probably choose a well-rated hospital near you or use whichever hospital your prenatal provider practices at. There are still a few things you may want to look into, though, including the hospital’s patient outcomes. There are many reasons why a hospital may have a high rate of birth interventions or C-sections, for example, and not all of them are bad—it could serve a higher-than-average population of women over 35 or women pregnant with multiples, for example.

However, a high intervention and surgery rate can also be a sign that a hospital is too quick to perform C-sections when labor isn’t progressing, or that it sees C-sections as an opportunity to generate more revenue (there’s a reason why for-profit hospitals usually have higher C-section rates).

If you’re having a high-risk pregnancy, there are other factors related to patient safety to consider, like whether the hospital has specialty providers on staff to meet your needs. An infant diagnosed in utero with a heart defect, for example, may require care from an on-site pediatric cardiologist right after birth.

Finally, women with complicated pregnancies may want to choose a hospital with a level III or IV neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) versus a traditional nursery. Level III and IV NICUs are equipped to provide critical care to newborns, and they have life support, advanced imaging and pediatric specialists available.

Hospital policies

How a maternity hospital provides care is a major part of how successful it is. Some of the more important policies to consider when choosing a maternal hospital include:

• Patient rights: Can you eat or drink during labor? Will you automatically get an IV, and will you be allowed to walk around with it in? Will you be told explicitly about any medical decisions your care team would like to make to keep you and baby safe? Will they respect your right to ask questions and/or refuse care?
• Kangaroo care: Having baby placed on your chest or stomach right after birth is associated with better postpartum outcomes for both of you. A maternity hospital should prioritize skin-to-skin contact, especially in the first hour after birth, and ideally after C-sections as well.
• Rooms and rooming in: Some maternity hospitals are designed with single-patient rooms, while others require room sharing. It’s good to know how a hospital assigns patients to rooms and what the rules are for shared rooms in terms of visitors and rooming in with baby. Speaking of rooming in, a maternity hospital should allow you to keep baby in the room with you at all times unless you specifically ask for a break; this creates a stronger bond between the two of you while still giving you access to newborn care support and advice.
• Baby-Friendly designation: Many of the best or high-ranking maternity hospitals in the US have a Baby-Friendly designation, which means the hospital has demonstrated its commitment to supporting breastfeeding. This can impact the success of breastfeeding during your hospital stay as well as in the first several weeks and months home with baby, says Ginn: “Moms who give birth in Baby-Friendly hospitals are more likely to exclusively breastfeed at discharge and continue breastfeeding in the weeks and months that follow,” she says. “This difference is driven by hospital practices, not by maternal motivation or effort.”

Patient support

During and after labor, you’ll need support from your hospital’s care team—after all, you have both yourself and a new little human to worry about! It’s a great idea to find a maternity hospital that has:

• On-site lactation consultants to assist with breastfeeding.
• A low nurse-to-patient ratio, which should ideally be 1:1 or 1:2 during labor and delivery, and 1:3 during the postpartum recovery phase.
• A welcoming approach to doulas or other support staff during labor. For Alexia M., a mom of two in Florida, this was a priority: “I’ve heard stories where hospitals weren’t too kind to doulas, and [I think] they’re just as important to the birthing process as the doctor… I made it clear it was essential that my doula was present at all times, and I appreciate that [my] request was respected.”
• Multiple options for pain management during labor, including nitrous oxide, epidurals and narcotics, as well as options for non-medicated pain relief, like birthing tubs and birthing balls.

Distance and travel needs

It’s important to think carefully about how far you’re willing to travel for maternity care. You may have more help from family and friends when staying at a hospital closer to home, and find it easier to connect with providers in your area after discharge. “There are excellent-quality hospitals in many locations, so if a hospital five minutes away can meet your needs, there’s no reason to drive an hour unless your provider recommends it,” says Dennis.

Financial and insurance planning

The part of giving birth no one wants to talk about is just how much it all costs! On average, giving birth in the US costs nearly $20,000 (more for C-section births), so you don’t want to pay out-of-pocket here—make sure both your provider and your hospital of choice are in-network with your insurance plan. FYI, even after insurance pays its part, many new parents are still left with a bill totaling around 15 percent of the cost.

The total cost of birth can vary widely, but you should be able to find more information about pricing by visiting your hospital’s website. A 2021 federal mandate requires that hospitals participate in pricing transparency, making the estimated cost for various procedures, including childbirth, available to the public. Tip: Google the name of your hospital and keywords like “cost estimator,” “billing and insurance" or "price transparency” to quickly find the right links. You may need to give your insurance information for the most accurate estimate.

That said, we strongly recommend calling your insurance provider before getting started with any prenatal care. Make sure all prenatal visits with your provider of choice are covered, check that your hospital is in-network, ask for an estimated breakdown of the costs and confirm how much of your hospital stay you’ll be responsible for, including co-pays and deductibles.

“I wish I knew how billing worked [before I gave birth],” says Alexia M. “The day I was scheduled to get induced, we were taken to [the billing department] first and slapped with a $500 payment that had to be paid before we could even go to the room.”

Should You Take a Maternity Hospital Tour?

Yes! Taking a maternity hospital tour is a great way to get an up-close look at where you’ll be spending your time during labor, delivery and postpartum recovery. “A hospital tour helps you get a feel for the environment when you’re not in labor, and emotions aren’t high,” says Ware. “You can notice things like how staff communicate, what policies are openly shared and whether the space feels calm.”

When to take a maternity hospital tour

Ware recommends taking a tour at some point in the second trimester or early third trimester. “You want to go early enough that you still have time to switch providers or hospitals if something doesn’t sit right,” she says.

What to look for during your tour

This is individualized based on what your specific needs are, but some general things to look for include:

• In-room option for babies
• Lactation consultant availability
• Labor resources, such as a birthing tub or birthing ball
• Cleanliness
• Room size and layout (single or private rooms, windows, proximity to nurse’s station)
• Noise level on recovery floor

Questions to ask during your tour

Your ob-gyn or midwife may have already addressed most of your questions about labor and delivery, but if not, a tour is the time to ask them. Ware suggests digging deep, asking about how decisions are made and explained during labor, as well as what support is offered if your labor isn’t going as planned.

Here are a few more questions to consider asking:

• Where in the hospital do I go when I’m in labor? (This changes based on the time of day, warns Ware, so it’s good to know—for example, after a certain time you may need to check in via the emergency room.)
• Who will be allowed to attend the birth with me?
• Will I be able to move around while I’m in labor?
• What are my options for pain management? How will you support me if I want a drug-free birth?
• What is your policy for visitors after I give birth?
• Will baby be able to stay in the room with me during recovery? Will I have the option to send them to the nursery if I need a break?
• Can my partner spend the night with me?
• Do you have a lactation consultant on staff?

To Sum It Up

There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a maternity hospital, from labor resources and staffing ratios to patient rights, room size and postpartum support. Instead of trying to consider it all, take some time to think about what matters most to you and cross-check those priorities with published quality ratings, patient reviews and in-person impressions of maternity hospitals near you. The goal isn’t necessarily to find the “perfect” maternity hospital, but one that makes you feel comfortable and confident in giving birth.

“The safest hospital for you is the one that aligns with your medical needs and your values, where you feel respected, informed and supported,” says Ware.

Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.