Massachusetts ranked best state to have a baby, study finds

LOS ANGELES - Massachusetts is the best U.S. state to have a baby according to a recent study from WalletHub, a personal finance website.

WalletHub found the best and worst places to raise a child in the U.S. based on a variety of factors including job opportunities, living costs medical costs and more. 

In order to determine the most ideal state to have a baby, WalletHub researchers compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 31 key measures of cost and health care accessibility, as well as baby- and family-friendliness.

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The first category to determine if a state is optimal for having a child was ranking various costs like early child care, health care premiums, babysitting and other medical costs. 

WalletHub wrote in a press release that aside from the difficulty of simply giving birth, the financial costs of raising a child can be overwhelming. 

The average conventional baby delivery in the U.S. costs around $4,500 with insurance, and without insurance it could cost over $10,000, according to the website. 

One interesting factor found by WalletHub was the difficulty of finding an affordable pediatrician or family practitioner in Louisiana, which contains the fewest per capita. 

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On the other hand, Vermont might be a good choice if those factors are the most important, as the state ranked fifth on the list. 

Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Connecticut and California may have ranked for being the best states to have kids but they also ranked the highest when it came to annual infant-care costs. 

Another statistic that was considered was infant mortality rate. Mississippi ranked the highest while Vermont ranked the lowest.