I haven't had a baby yet but....We considered both and decided to go private. The main reasons were:

- Own OB
- Private room rather than shared ward - privacy and DH can stay
- Staying for 5 days rather than 24 hrs - feel a little better with our first although will probably want to go home

My friend recently went public and generally had excellent care although baby was breach and they let her go into labour for 11 hours because a doctor wasn't available to deliver. She had to share the room and was recovering from a ceasar, other people were noisy with lots of visitors toddlers were running through the room into her area. She said she would have liked to go private if she had the cover.

It cost her no more than $600 for her care and expenses for the whole pg
and my hospital fee alone will be $780 + other costs and the OB is expensive.