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A Microcosting Study of Establishing a Baby Café® in Texas
Rigoberto I Delgado1, Sara L Gill2
11 Department of Management, Policy & Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
Background:
This article focuses on the costs of opening and running a Baby Café. A Baby Café is an intervention that focuses on providing peer-to-peer support for breastfeeding mothers. Research aim: This study aimed to estimate the costs of establishing and running a Baby Café.
Methods:
The authors used a microcosting approach to identifying costs using the case of a Baby Café located in San Antonio, Texas, and modeled after other existing cafés in the United States. They also used extensive literature review and conducted an informal interview with a manager of an existing Baby Café in the United States to validate our cost data. The cost analysis was done from the provider perspective.
Results:
Costs of starting a Baby Café were $36,000, whereas annual operating costs totaled $47,000. Total discounted costs for a 5-year period amounted to $250,000, resulting in a cost per Baby Café session of $521 and cost per mother of $104. Varying the number of sessions per week and number of mothers attending each session, the discounted cost per Baby Café session ranged between $460 and $740 and the cost per mother varied between $65 and $246.
Conclusion:
These findings can be used by policy makers and organizations to evaluate local resource requirements for starting a Baby Café. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention against other breastfeeding promoting initiatives.
