Personal finance website WalletHub today released a report on 2026’s Best & Worst States to Have a Baby and South Carolina was ranked as being the sixth worst in the country. This a slightly better ranking than last year.
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 31 key measures of cost, health care accessibility and baby-friendliness. The data set ranges from conventional-delivery charges at hospitals to average annual infant-care costs to the number of pediatricians per capita.
Having a Baby in South Carolina (1=Best; 25=Avg.):
- Overall Rank: 46th
- 30th – Hospital Cesarean-Delivery Charges
- 29th – Hospital Conventional-Delivery Charges
- 46th – Infant Mortality Rate
- 45th – Rate of Low Birth-Weight
- 33rd – Midwives & OB-GYNs per Capita
- 37th – Pediatricians & Family Medicine Physicians per Capita
- 40th – Child-Care Centers per Capita
- 38th – Parental-Leave Policy Score
Click here to see the full report.