What does the french law say about americans having a baby in france while on vacation?

Question

What does the french law say about americans having a baby in france while on vacation?

Answer 1

Not sure about the legalities but it wont make the baby a French citizen anyway. It's complicated and takes over 5 years, much of it hinging on the parents' status in France.

Having a baby is not terribly expensive. I had mine in France and it cost about 1400 Euros to have a normal, uncomplicated birth. C-sections, complications and epidurals will boot that price up but it'll still be much cheaper than in the U.S. I was employed with an American firm at the time and it was happily paid by my U.S. insurers.

My experiences were wonderful and I had much better care than I would have in the States, but that can vary by region and hospital in France.

You'll have lots of fun paperwork to do before leaving because as an American citizen, the baby would have to have an American passport before entering the States, even if s/he has another nationality.

http://www.amb-usa.fr/consul/acs/birth.h...

Be sure to bring over your "proof of presence", usually transcripts. Get all the papers from the U.S. Consulate or Embassy beforehand and make the apt. as soon as the baby is born.

I'm not aware if my status in France, permanate resident for two and French citizen for the third, was never checked when I gave birth. I can't say for a fact what the legalities actually are, whether you're breaking any rules. There is no advantage for a child to be born in France and the only "risk" I can imagine is going over your 90 day visa. You can stay longer if either of you have an EU nationality.

Airlines usually wont let you fly past a certain point in your pregnancy (varies between companies but usually around 36 weeks) and then you'd be faced with a transatlantic flight with a very new baby. It's possible but tricky if there were any complications.