In case you haven't heard, laughing gas has actually been making a comeback in delivery rooms across the US over the last few years. Yes — that laughing gas. But in case you're imagining pregnant moms doubled over with laughter mid-push, that's not exactly how it works. According to nurse-midwife Karli-Rae Kerrschneider, when given in the right dosages, laughing gas (aka nitrous oxide) offers moms a less invasive alternative to an epidural. âNitrous doesnât take away the pain so much as make you not care about it,â Kerrschneider recently told NBC News.
It's for this reason that the Hudson, Wisconsin, mother decided to use laughing gas when giving birth herself December 19.
Although she'd had an epidural while giving birth to her first daughter back in 2016, Kerrschneider didn't like the feeling of being immobilized and unable to leave her hospital bed during labor.
So when it came time for Baby No. 2, she opted for the laughing gas — and says it went just as well as she could have hoped.
Despite being in labor for a whopping 11 hours, Kerrschneider told NBC that taking puffs of the nitrous oxide "took the edge off."
In the meantime, she was able to move around as she labored at nearby Hudson Hospital, soaking in a birthing tub and even walking around between contractions. As labor progressed, she estimates she took about 10 to 15 puffs of the gas an hour before finally giving birth to her son, Leviathan.
All in all, she gives the experience a 5-star-rating. (Which is a pretty great review, because giving birth can be hella painful.)
âIt was amazing,â she said. âI would do it all over again.â
Oh yeah, except for one tiny not-so-insignificant detail: the astronomical bill she got slapped with when leaving the hospital.
When all was said and done, the final bill for those glorious puffs of laughing gas totaled $4,836. (Gulp.)
In case you're thinking, "Oh, surely that must have been for the whole hospital stay!" Nope, it was not.
The whole hospital stay, including the cost of the laughing gas, was $11,890 -- for a vaginal delivery with no complications.
Kerrschneider was especially shocked because she knew that the hospital where she worked charged a flat fee of $100 for nitrous. According to NBC News, the average cost of a nitrous oxide machine is $6,500 and a refill of the tank comes in around $50. So charging just one mother nearly $5,000 for the service seems a little, well, insane.
As Kerrschneider would soon learn (a bit too late), was that unlike the epidural, cost structures for nitrous oxide vary widely.
âThere is no transparency or standardization,â Judith Rooks, a retired nurse-midwife and former president of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, told NBC News.
Some say a lot of this has to do with the recent resurgence of the labor medication and that labor drugs such as an epidural have been popular in the US for a while and therefore subject to standardization over time. (For comparison's sake, the same hospital where Kerrschneider gave birth charges $1,495 for an epidural — a considerable price drop.)Â
Prices also sometimes vary depending on who administered the gas. In Kerrschneider's case, it was an anesthesiologist, which drove up the bill even more.
In the end, Kerrschneider fought with both the hospital and her insurance company as much as she could -- and got the bill lowered to $3,635.
Still a hefty price tag, but at least it wasn't over $11,000.
"I was just tired of dealing with it,â she said. âI had a newborn I was breastfeeding, and I didnât want to have it hanging over my head anymore.âÂ
She hopes that others who hear her story know to ask more questions about their hospital's specific practices — and hidden fees — when it comes to their birth plans. But still, she can't help but feel for the many families who were slapped were similar bills and weren't able to get them lowered.
 âHow many people have given birth at this hospital and have paid it in cash or whatever just because they didnât know?â she wondered.
