According to This Report, Indiana Is One the Worst Places to Have a Baby in 2023

There is an old saying that goes something like "If you wait until you're ready to have kids, you'll never have them." That basically means you will never really be "ready" to have a kid - none of us are - so I guess you have to take a chance and just go for it. I don't know if that's true or not - who's to say? What I can tell you is that some states are, apparently, better than others when it comes to bringing a child into the world.

Best & Worst States For Having a Baby

How would you go about determining if one state were better than another for having a child? Luckily, you don't have to, because WalletHub has already done it. If that kind of thing is important to you, or at least a little bit interesting, then you should check out their report ranking 2023's Best & Worst States to Have a Baby. The financial website collected and compared data that measured the cost of having a child, health care accessibility, as well as baby-friendliness, and family-friendliness.

The Hoosier State Has Some Work to Do

The results of the report are not great for Indiana, which ranks #40 on the list - meaning there are only ten states worse than us. The Hoosier state had a total score of 41.9 - compared to #1 Massachusetts which had a score of 69.31.

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Indiana ranked 44th in the "Health Care" category - unfortunately, that seems to be the most important category, measuring things like Infant Mortality Rate, Maternal Mortality Ratio, Low Food Security for Babies, Quality of Women’s Hospitals, and many others. If you had to find a silver lining I guess it could be the fact that Indiana is in the top 20 (#18) when it comes to the cost of having a baby. Woohoo!

The Rest of the Results

When it comes to the Tri-State, the report ranks Kentucky at #34, and Illinois at #21. Not too shabby. Check out the full report to see all of the data - you can also scroll over the map below to see how the rest of the country scored.