Giving Birth In Singapore or Thailand?

I think the question of where to give birth to you child, whether Singapore or Thailand, will be on the mind of parents-to-be who are of a Singaporean Father/Thai Mother couple. 

And I am pretty sure the husband will want to let the child be born here and the wife in her home country.

I would like to offer my thoughts and share my experiences.

1) Standard of Care

In this area, I would say that both countries have a high standard of medical care. Facilities and equipment, at least for child birth, is adequate whether you are looking at Government or Private Hospital

2) Cost

In terms of cost, I would say that Thailand would definitely be much cheaper. My wife gave birth in a Government Hospital and the delivery bill came to about 12,000 Baht (if I don't remember wrongly) for cesarean birth. And because my wife had a Bat Tong (a medical card with subsidies for Thai), the cost for the delivery is free and I only had to pay room and board (because I upgraded to a 1-bedder room) and some medication and the bill for a 3 days stay came to about 5,000 Baht.

In Singapore, I am not sure about the cost but I checked around and it will cost at least $1,000 upwards for a normal birth.

3) Language

Unless your wife have a strong English background and can speak the language well, chances are that it will be a chicken and duck talk situation between the doctor/nurses and her. I feel that as we are not the one giving birth, it is important that she can communicate with the doctors and nurses during the delivery just in case she needs to express some difficulties but the doctors do not understand.

4) Citizenship

This is the part I like the most. I choose to let my 2 kids be born in Thailand and they are holding dual citizenship until the age of 21. They have 2 passports and have no trouble staying in either country for as long as they want.

They also enjoy the benefits of being both a Thai (they also got a Bat Tong each as their mother had 1) and a Singaporean (I am entitled to all payouts of the Baby Bonus Scheme ).

It is fairly easy to apply for the Singapore citizenship for them but that is something I will share in another post.

Conclusion

Overall, if a Singapore Father/Thai Mother couple were to ask me where should they deliver their child, I will advice them to do it in Thailand. Even if we do not need to consider the cost, I think that there are other advantages in delivering the child in Thailand.

And Thai people have very different views/practices on postpartum care (they do not and cannot stand not washing their hair for 1 month). They would prefer to be taken care of the Thai way and this is something that only their parents can offer.