When I was growing up, people born outside the US to American parents were almost always in the military, stationed overseas. These days, it’s becoming more popular to have a baby in Mexico as a means of giving your child dual citizenship and more opportunities.

Having been there, done that, and gotten the maternity t-shirt, I figured that maybe my experience can help someone choose to do – or avoid! – the same.

I’ll be honest, it felt like most US citizens that give birth in Mexico speak Spanish better that us, or have a spouse who is from Mexico. I did kind of wonder if we were crazy, making a short term move to Mexico to have a baby.

Keep reading to get an overview of our experience, or click below to the detailed posts:
Our Experience with Birth in Mexico
The Acta de Nacimiento (Mexican birth certificate)
The CRBA and US Passport
The Mexican Passport
Mexican Residency – we are entitled to Mexican residency, but have not yet applied

The idea to give birth in Mexico, or birth tourism, has become more popular. There are now many agencies that facilitate every step of the process for you – if you pay them a handsome fee. That’s not our style, and it’s certainly not necessary. However, if money isn’t a factor in your choice, hiring a birth agency may be a great option.

Why We Decided to Have a Baby in Mexico

The main reason to give birth in Mexico is financial. I gave birth to our first child in the USA, and even with insurance the cost was about $12,000. That’s the price we pay for being contract employees (aka self-employed) whose only insurance option is healthcare marketplace. My understanding is that a subsequent administration gutted the “affordable” out of the Affordable Care Act. These days, it’s poor coverage and high prices.

The cost of having a baby in Mexico was just under $5000, in a private hospital with no insurance. If you include the rent that we paid for the four months we were there, the total cost is still cheaper than our US experience at $10,500. And obviously our rent was not cheap.

In addition to the immediate financial benefits, the nice thing about a Mexican passport is travel visa-free to many countries. He can visit places like South America without paying “reciprocal fees.” Essentially, the US made it so expensive for some travelers to visit, that those countries started making US tourist visas equally expensive. Traveling in on a Mexican passport would be significant cheaper.

With a Mexican “anchor baby,” the parents and siblings can apply for permanent residency, aka a green card.

And finally, who wouldn’t want to spend the final months of pregnancy basking in the sun on a Mexican beach?

How We Got Started

We’d read about a couple other travelers who had a baby in Mexico and that’s what sparked the idea. When we decided to actually commit to planning, our priority was finding a good doctor. There’s a lot of myths about Mexico that may scare people off, but there is one very real concern: unnecessary c-sections. Worldwide, the c-section rate is about 20%. In the USA it’s around 30%. Mexico clocks in at a whopping 45%. A c-section is a wonderful option when it is medically necessary, but I absolutely cannot imagine recovering from surgery with a toddler and a newborn – especially if it’s avoidable.

We found a doctor who only performs c-sections when needed, and she speaks good English. So that gave us a location to target. Then we found an airbnb in Puerto Vallarta, got in contact with the owners. We asked if they’d offer us a cheaper rate for our longer term stay. They offered us a lease so we could avoid the astronomical airbnb fees and taxes. It was still 50% higher than any rent we’ve ever paid, but it was short notice and a great location. It even had a pool!

We booked flights. Dream became reality.

Prenatal Care in Mexico

We arrived in Mexico right around the start of my third trimester. Appointment scheduling was almost exactly the same as the US. Monthly appointments for most of the pregnancy, then towards the end every 2 weeks, and then weekly until birth. I had no local health insurance, I paid 900 pesos per visit ($50). Each visit included an ultrasound, and towards the end they also did a non-stress test.

We decided on an elective induction so that we could ensure childcare for our toddler, one of the few downsides to giving birth so far from home. It was an extremely gentle induction, so gentle that it felt more like waiting for natural labor. As things ramped up, my doctora even came to our apartment to check how I was progressing (she made sure we knew that house calls were not standard, but she lived just a few blocks from us).

When she gave the word, we all headed to the hospital. It was also right in our neighborhood, only 1km away.

Total cost of 6 OB appointments, labwork, a special ultrasound, and prescriptions: $555.82

Birth in a Private Hospital in Puerto Vallarta

I won’t get too graphic here, but the birth happened quickly. Both the doctora and the hospital said they’d never had anything like that happen before. So, while I was very excited to get an epidural, I had the baby before the anesthesiologist even arrived at the hospital. My experience with the hospital was absolutely on par with the US. One difference is that the nurses didn’t really interact much, leaving that to the doctors. However, that could have been because of the language barrier. At the hospital, most of the doctors spoke good English and most of the nurses did not. Puerto Vallarta is a big tourist town, including medical tourism, and many locals speak good English.

After the initial pediatrician check, baby Arrow never left my side. As is common in Mexico for a birth with no complications, we left the hospital in less than 24 hours after giving birth.

Cost of OB delivery: $2490.74
Cost of private hospital: $1501.88

Differences in Newborn Care in Mexico

Here is where my healthcare experience in the US really diverged from my experience in Mexico. In the US, the metabolic test and hearing test were done right at the hospital when I gave birth. They also took care of getting the birth certificate and the social security number. They also performed the first vaccine right there at birth. Then we had to schedule the first pediatrician appointment for 3 days after birth.

In Mexico, these were all separate appointments and errands that we had to run. We needed to get the vaccine at Centro de Salud within the first 7 days of life, and the metabolic test at a lab within the first two months, and the hearing test at a clinic within the first 3 months. The hospital gave us a hospital birth form, and we needed to take that and other documentation to the Registro Civil (civil registry) to get the Acta de Nacimiento (birth certificate) and CURP (Mexican version of a social security number). The first pediatrician appointment was 10 days after birth, as was my postpartum OB visit.

For parents with a toddler and a newborn, it was A LOT. Mexicans observe “cuarentena,” where a mother stays home to recover and bond with her newborn for the first 40 days. I don’t understand how I was supposed to get half a dozen postpartum appointments accomplished without leaving the house. Every day we were trying to get something else done. It took us three trips to Registro Civil to get the Acta, and two trips to the blood lab to get the metabolic test. It was exhausting.

Vaccinations

In Mexico, vaccinations are a child’s right. We had our first experience with Centro de Salud when our toddler needed his next round of vaccinations. I walked in with the kid, he got his shots, and we walked right back out. Not only did they not ask for money, they hardly even asked for proof of his age or what shots were necessary (hopefully this is related to me being a foreigner and also the language barrier, and not their standard).

With the newborn, it was the same thing. I walked in, he got his shots, we walked out. It was so great that I specifically planned our departure from Mexico around the 2-month vaccines. I wasn’t leaving without them! We were flying into a US state where we didn’t have health insurance, making easy, free vaccines in Mexico superior to figuring out where to get them done in the USA.

Documenting Our New Baby

So, as I just said, it took us three trips to Registro Civil to get our Acta de Nacimiento. The Acta is critically important because it is the piece of paperwork we needed before we could start the process of documenting our child as a US citizen, which had to be done before we could go back to the States.

Once we had the Acta, we submitted the application for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad. The CRBA functions as a US birth certificate for citizens born abroad. It was our understanding that we could go to the consular office in Puerto Vallarta for our CRBA. It seems that Covid changed that process. Instead, our family of four had to fly to Guadalajara to the consulate. But first we had to secure an appointment!

The consulate told us it could take up to four months to hear back about scheduling an appointment. Another person who’d recently been through this said that it took four months to get their appointment at the consulate, but then the consulate gave them 5 days notice for their appointment. If they were not able to make it to their appointment, the process would have started all over again. We only had our apartment leased for two more months, so between this and the news that we had to fly with our newborn and toddler, we were thoroughly stressed out.

Instead, we specified that we had extenuating circumstances and needed an emergency appointment. We had upcoming travel plans, and had no lodging past that date. Within 5 days of submitting our application, we had an appointment scheduled for 3 weeks later. We had to fly to the consulate with extensive documentation for both us and the baby, but at our appointment we were approved for the CRBA, and we were able to get an emergency passport printed within an hour of being granted citizenship.

As soon as we had the Acta, we also scheduled an appointment for a Mexican passport. We did not need this in order to return to the USA, but it was my understanding that it was a quick and easy thing to acquire. That was a big fat lie. It took 6 trips to the SRE, every time they told us “Oh, we just need one change to the paperwork, and then you’re all set!” And every time, they would find something else that was wrong. We finally received the Mexican passport 4 days before we flew back to the USA.

Lastly, once we were back in the US, we had to visit a Social Security Administration office to complete our application for a social security number. It took a single visit and was no trouble at all.

Other Resources for Having a Baby in Mexico

Rebel Heart – A couple that, like us, had a baby in the USA then later had a baby in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They had to nuke their blog after internet trolls targeted them, but their helpful pages about birth in Mexico have been preserved by archive.org. Charlotte documented her experience pretty extensively, she shares some great tips for having a baby in Mexico. Some of the information is outdated, Registro Civil is in a different building, and the consular office is no longer processing CRBAs.

Anna Everywhere – Another woman who extensively wrote about her experience giving birth in Cancun. She is the only one I’ve seen write about the process for getting permanent residency in Mexico after having a baby there.

Foxflat – A woman who blogged about having a baby in Mexico City. Katie mainly talks about the medical side of the experience, but doesn’t talk about the bureaucracy too much. She hired a lawyer to get the Mexican birth certificate for them, and I’m very jealous that she had that option.

LuxPats – A couple who intended to blog about the whole paperwork process for documenting their anchor baby in Mexico, but only made it as far as the Acta de Nacimiento (I suspect they, like us, have some PTSD about the experience – paperwork trauma). It took them 9 weeks to get the baby’s Mexican birth certificate!

Facebook – For better or for worse, no one really blogs anymore. Instead, the information is shared via Facebook, which means it’s not readily available via internet search. I joined the Puerto Vallarta Facebook group and gleaned some information there, and I also made a couple contacts that answered a lot of my questions. Many thanks to the kind strangers who wrote paragraphs and paragraphs of information to help ease our stress levels.