Giving Birth in Greece: Our Experience, Costs & What to Expect

From finding an obstetrician and navigating a private hospital to registering a birth and obtaining a passport, here’s what actually happened when we welcomed our second daughter in Athens.

Having a baby in another country isn’t entirely new territory for us.

Our first daughter, Nora, was born in Zagreb, Croatia. And by the time our second daughter was on her way, we’d already spent years traveling, living in vans, sailing boats, and various temporary homes around the world.

But even with that experience, having a baby overseas still comes with plenty of unknowns.

Different healthcare systems, different expectations, unfamiliar paperwork, and occasionally discovering that something you assumed would be straightforward operates completely differently.

For our second daughter, Alma, we chose Athens.

We arrived about four weeks before her birth, rented a comfortable apartment in Pangrati, and stayed for another four weeks afterward.

Some things caught us completely off guard.

But there were also some wonderful people who made the experience considerably easier.

Here’s how we organized everything, what happened at the hospital, what we paid, and what we’d suggest other families consider before having a baby in Greece.

Why we chose Athens

With a baby on the way, continuing to move around indefinitely wasn’t going to be an option.

We needed somewhere to stop.

Somewhere with good healthcare, a comfortable place to live, and enough going on that we wouldn’t feel like we were simply waiting for the next chapter.

Athens made sense.

It’s a major European city with established private hospitals, plenty of medical specialists, and a relatively affordable everyday cost of living.

We also already knew an obstetrician there.

And that was probably the most important factor in the decision.

Finding a doctor in Greece

One of the first things worth understanding is how maternity care is arranged in Greece.

In Croatia, we’d approached the hospital first.

In Greece, we found ourselves choosing the doctor first, with the hospital arrangements following from there.

Fortunately, we already had someone we knew and trusted.

Why we already knew our obstetrician

Kelli had experienced two miscarriages while we were travelling in Greece, both during separate stays in Preveza.

The first involved being transferred to Arta Hospital for a D&C, which was a difficult and traumatic experience.

During the second miscarriage, we received care from a different doctor, who managed the process with medication.

That doctor was based in Athens but traveled to Preveza regularly to work on weekends, helping provide medical care to the local community.

He was kind, spoke excellent English and had been good to deal with during a difficult time.

So when we were deciding where to have Alma, knowing we could return to a doctor we already trusted was enormously reassuring.

How we’ve found doctors while travelling

For anyone arriving in Greece without an existing medical contact, we’ve had reasonably good luck finding doctors using Google Reviews.

We’ve done this throughout Greece, as well as in Croatia, Bosnia, Georgia and other places we’ve travelled.

We look particularly closely at reviews written in English.

That doesn’t guarantee someone will be a good doctor, of course, but it can help identify practices that regularly deal with international patients and where communicating in English is unlikely to be a major obstacle.

One thing we learnt in Greece is not to rely exclusively on email.

We often found that a phone call or WhatsApp message was much more effective.

One doctor even told us he’d ignored our original enquiry because he thought an email written in English was probably spam.

Not particularly encouraging when you’re trying to arrange medical care, but useful to know.

Our advice would be to contact a few doctors, check their experience with international patients, confirm that you can communicate comfortably, and be prepared to pick up the phone if your emails go unanswered.

Prenatal care while traveling

Our pregnancy care was a little unusual.

Rather than remaining in one country for nine months, we organized appointments and scans around where we happened to be traveling.

We saw doctors in Greece, Bosnia and Australia, and kept our own records as we moved between countries.

Altogether, Kelli had nine scans.

What surprised us was how inexpensive many of those appointments were. Routine scans often cost us around €50, although the prices varied depending on exactly where we were.

We also paid for genetic testing (€ 1,000) and several rounds of bloodwork (€500).

Once we settled in Athens for the final month of pregnancy, our obstetrician coordinated Kelli’s remaining care.

She attended appointments at Mitera Hospital or local facilities for blood tests.

Surprisingly, there were only two checkups with our obstetrician during those final four weeks.

We had expected more, although our circumstances and pregnancy history were obviously particular to us.

The prenatal consultations with our doctor were included in his overall fee.

One thing we’d recommend: if you’re receiving pregnancy care across several countries, keep copies (both digital copies and hard copies) of your scans, results and medical history somewhere easy to access.

We’d become fairly accustomed to managing our own records, but it’s especially useful when each new doctor may be seeing you for the first time.

Choosing Mitera Hospital

Our obstetrician arranged for Alma to be delivered at Mitera Hospital, a private maternity hospital in Athens.

He and his assistant handled the hospital arrangements, which made the process much simpler than trying to organize everything ourselves.

Because Nora had been delivered by cesarean section, we’d decided with our doctor on a planned C-section for Alma.

That meant we had a date.

And having a date made planning considerably easier.

We knew roughly when Kelli would be admitted, how long she was likely to be in hospital, and what we needed to organize for Nora.

Finding somewhere for the rest of the family

Rather than traveling back and forth across Athens every day, I booked a small Airbnb near Mitera for myself, Nora and Kelli’s mom, Tracy.

It was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment just a two-minute walk from the hospital.

We paid €350 for four nights.

That turned out to be a really useful arrangement.

I could look after Nora, visit Kelli, and get between the accommodation and the hospital without organizing taxis or dealing with Athens traffic.

If you’re giving birth overseas with an older child, it’s an additional expense worth considering.

having a C-section at Mitera

This was probably the part of our experience where the differences between healthcare systems became most apparent.

The medical care itself was reassuring, and we were very happy with our doctor.

That said, being in a foreign country can be confusing at the best of times, and some of the hospital processes weren’t what we expected, and communication about what was happening wasn’t always particularly clear. Of course that was down to us not speaking Greek, and not all the staff being comfortable communicating in English.

Partners in the delivery room

When we arrived, Kelli was taken away to prepare for surgery.

I wasn’t allowed to accompany her.

She repeatedly asked when I’d be able to join her, and it was at least an hour, possibly longer, before I was eventually brought back.

By then she’d received her anaesthetic and was waiting for the operation.

It wasn’t until she was being taken into the operating room that we realised I wouldn’t be allowed to attend the actual delivery.

That was a surprise.

Having already been through a birth together in Croatia, we’d arrived with certain expectations about how things would work.

And although our doctor spoke English as a second language and we tried to ask questions in the lead-up, its fair to say that a slight language barrier remained and flow of information wasn’t neceserily as effecient.

And by the time we discovered the situation there wasn’t much we could do about it.

Our advice for anyone giving birth in an unfamiliar country would be not to rely on assumptions. Ask questions. Lots of questions. And don’t be afraid to insist on absolute clarity.

Write down how you expect the whole process to unfold, from admission through to recovery, and make a list of questions about each stage. Then go through it with your doctor, double-checking anything you’re unsure about.

It’s much better to ask what feels like a silly question beforehand than discover an unexpected answer on the day.

Meeting Alma

After Alma was born, Kelli was able to hold her briefly while the surgical team completed the operation.

They had around five minutes together before Alma was taken away.

I was then brought into a separate room, where I got to meet and hold her for a few minutes.

And then she was taken away again.

We assumed she was being cared for and undergoing routine newborn checks, but we don’t remember receiving a clear explanation of what was happening.

I also briefly saw Kelli after surgery, before she was moved into a recovery area for observation.

Eventually, she was transferred to the maternity ward.

It was around four hours after Alma’s birth before we could spend any meaningful time with her.

That was longer than we’d expected, and probably one of the more confusing parts of the whole experience.

We don’t know whether that separation was routine for our circumstances or particular to the hospital’s procedures.

Again if we were doing it again, we’d certainly ask beforehand what happens to the baby immediately after delivery and when the parents can expect to be reunited.

Staying on the maternity ward

Kelli was transferred to a room shared with two other mothers.

We knew going in that the standard accommodation at Mitera was a shared room, and briefly considered upgrading to a private suite. But at several thousand euros extra, we decided that money could probably be better spent elsewhere.

As it turned out, we needn’t have worried.

The room was compact, but the curtains provided enough privacy, and the other mothers and their visitors were lovely. They were often happy to help translate when our Greek wasn’t up to the task.

And given Alma was comfortably the loudest baby in the room, we could hardly complain about sharing.

We’d had a private suite for Nora’s birth in Croatia, and it had been wonderful. In fact, the entire experience there, suite included, had cost us less than the birth in Athens. But second time around, we were a little more confident about what we were doing, and the shared room turned out to be perfectly fine.

We’d understood that a three-night stay was fairly normal after a C-section, but our doctor was happy for her to be discharged early, so she spent two nights there.

There were some things we really appreciated about the care.

A nursing specialist visited, and a physiotherapist provided advice on recovering from the C-section, including how to care for the incision and surrounding muscles.

That kind of support was very welcome.

We also received a useful box of baby-care samples, including washes, nappies and other bits and pieces.

The Food

The food was actually pretty decent, although Kelli’s diet was quite restricted for the first 12 hours after the birth.

Once she was allowed proper meals, things improved considerably.

Apart from a fairly grim post-birth soup, there were roast meats, pastitsio and other hearty Greek dishes.

It wasn’t going to win any culinary awards, but it was filling, tasty and surprisingly comforting. More like home cooking than the hospital food we’d expected.

There was also a cafeteria onsite which had a broader range of foods available for purchase including decent coffee, cakes, snadwhiches and hot meals.

Visiting arrangements

From our perspective, visiting hours and rules weren’t particularly clear. Visitors were generally asked to leave when nurses needed to attend to the mothers. We were told one visitor at a time and only two visitors per day. A rule that we followed but was not followed nor enforced by anyone else.

Nora wasn’t allowed into Kelli’s room because she was sharing with other patients.

In contrast, people selling baby products from the downstairs gift shop were allowed into the rooms to spruik at regular intervals.

Nursing care and communication

The nurses were generally lovely, but as could be expected, not everyone spoke fluent English.

And Kelli felt there wasn’t much explanation about Alma’s care or what she should be doing.

Fortunately, this was our second baby.

We’d already been through the basics of caring for a newborn, breastfeeding and recovering after birth.

But if this had been our first child, the limited guidance might have been considerably more difficult.

We also sometimes waited a surprisingly long time for help after calling for a nurse.

None of this changes the fact that we were grateful for the care we received, particularly from our doctor and the specialists who helped Kelli recover.

But it did make us realise how important clear communication can be when you’re in an unfamiliar healthcare system.

Our biggest takeaway: ask questions, clarify expectations ahead of time, and don’t assume that the hospital will explain every step without being prompted.

What it cost to have our baby in Greece

We paid privately for the birth and didn’t receive reimbursement through insurance.

Here are the figures from our experience.

The birth itself cost us €6,600, combining our obstetrician’s fee and the final Mitera bill.

The hospital charge included pre-operative care, the delivery, elective testing for Alma, her hospital care and Kelli’s stay.

We initially had to pay the full hospital quote upfront by card.

Because Kelli’s doctor approved an early discharge, we received a refund of approximately €100, leaving our final hospital payment at €3,600.

When we add the genetic testing, bloodwork, around nine scans and nearby accommodation, our broader pregnancy-and-birth spending comes to roughly €8,900, before other incidentals.

There’s an important qualification, though.

Some of those prenatal appointments and tests took place outside Greece, while we were traveling. So €8,900 isn’t a quote for having an entire pregnancy managed in Athens.

It’s simply a reasonable approximation of what we spent.

And it reflects one particular private-hospital birth, our chosen doctor, our medical circumstances and the tests we elected to have.

Your costs could be quite different.

Registering our baby’s birth in Greece

We thought that once Alma was born, the complicated part would be behind us.

Then we started the paperwork.

The actual birth registration turned out to be one of the more involved administrative processes we encountered in Greece (and that’s saying something).

The hospital paperwork

We first attended an office at Mitera with our passports and a document issued by the hospital.

There was a surprisingly detailed interview to complete the registration paperwork.

And we discovered that several documents needed more attention than we’d anticipated.

Our marriage certificate, which had already been translated, needed to be translated again, with names properly transliterated into Greek and the document re-stamped by an authorised translator.

We also needed Greek transliterations of our own names and our parents’ names.

Fortunately, those particular entries didn’t require separate certification, so we used ChatGPT to help with the spelling.

We were also asked to disclose our education levels and religious affiliations.

Not questions I’d expected to encounter while registering the birth of our daughter.

It took a couple of visits to iron everything out.

The hospital office staff were friendly and helpful, even though communicating in English wasn’t always straightforward.

But the process certainly wasn’t as simple as we’d anticipated.

Getting the official Greek birth certificate

After the experience at the hospital office, we were bracing ourselves for another bureaucratic adventure at the civil registry office.

About a week after Alma was born, we travelled back out near Mitera with the completed paperwork.

Five minutes later, we had her official Greek birth certificate.

Turns out, we’d already done the difficult bit.

What we’d organise differently

If we were doing it again, we’d investigate the birth registration requirements before arriving.

Particularly the requirements for marriage certificates, authorised translations and the spelling of names in Greek.

The documentation required can depend on your circumstances, so we’d recommend checking directly with the hospital and relevant registry office rather than relying on someone else’s checklist.

You can also find official information about declaring a birth through the Greek government website.

Getting an American passport for our newborn

With Alma’s Greek birth certificate in hand, the next step was arranging her American citizenship documentation and passport.

Kelli is American, so we applied through the US Embassy in Athens.

We’d previously been through this process for Nora in Zagreb, and based on that experience, decided it was the most straightforward option for our circumstances.

Our application timeline

We requested an appointment at the US Embassy roughly ten days after Alma was born.

We were able to get an appointment about a week later.

We attended with Alma, a passport photograph, her Greek birth certificate, our marriage certificate and supporting documents for Kelli’s US citizenship and residency history.

Those included her college transcript, driver’s licence and tax returns.

The appointment was surprisingly straightforward.

When we’d applied for Nora’s documentation in Zagreb, we’d had a more substantial interview.

This time there was barely an interview at all.

Twenty-eight days after the appointment, Alma’s Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) and American passport arrived by post.

The combined application cost us US$235.

The CRBA documents that an eligible child acquired US citizenship at birth through a parent. It isn’t the same thing as the Greek birth certificate.

For current requirements, see the US Department of State’s guidance on births abroad.

What about our Greek visas?

This is one part of the process we haven’t yet managed to resolve.

We’re still in Greece, and we’ve submitted requests to add Alma to our existing visa arrangements.

So far, those requests haven’t received a response.

With plans to leave Greece approaching, that’s understandably making us a little nervous.

We don’t yet know how it will be resolved, so I don’t want to speculate or offer advice based on an outcome we haven’t experienced.

We’ll update this section once we know more.

What we’d recommend if you’re planning to give birth in Greece

Having a baby in Athens was a positive experience overall, but there are a few things we’d approach differently if we were organising it again.

Find a doctor you trust. For us, having an obstetrician we already knew, and who spoke excellent English, made a huge difference.

Ask detailed questions about hospital procedures. Particularly whether partners can attend a C-section, what happens to the baby immediately after delivery, and how long you can expect to be separated.

Confirm the total costs in advance. We paid our doctor and hospital separately, and the hospital required payment upfront. Make sure you understand what’s included and how refunds or additional charges work.

Organise important documents before the birth. Especially marriage certificates, translations and any nationality-specific requirements.

Think about accommodation for the rest of the family. Having an Airbnb two minutes from Mitera made looking after Nora considerably easier.

Allow enough time for citizenship and passport applications. Our American documents took around four weeks after the embassy appointment to arrive, and appointment availability is another variable.

And finally, don’t assume that obtaining a passport resolves all your immigration paperwork. We’re still working through that part ourselves.

Would we choose Athens again?

Yes.

There were certainly things we’d rather have understood in advance.

The restrictions on partners attending surgery, the separation immediately after birth, the limited explanations at times, and the unexpectedly involved paperwork all made the experience more complicated than we’d anticipated.

But there were also people who made a real difference.

Our obstetrician, who we’d come to trust through an earlier difficult experience.

The specialists who helped Kelli recover.

And the staff who guided us through unfamiliar processes, even when we didn’t always share a language.

Most importantly, we were able to spend the weeks before and after Alma’s birth somewhere comfortable, with good healthcare and a little routine that worked for our family.

We’d arrived in Athens expecting to spend two months waiting.

Instead, we built a little life there.

And somewhere in the middle of it, we became a family of four.

Frequently Asked Questions About Giving Birth in Greece

Can foreigners give birth in Greece?

Yes. We arranged a private, self-funded birth at Mitera Hospital in Athens, without using Greek health insurance.

We chose our obstetrician first, and he and his assistant organised the hospital arrangements. Our experience was straightforward in that respect, although access to public healthcare and insurance arrangements may differ.

How much does it cost to give birth in Greece?

We paid €6,600 for a planned C-section at Mitera Hospital: €3,000 for our obstetrician and €3,600 for the hospital, including newborn care and elective tests.

Our broader pregnancy and birth expenses came to approximately €8,900, including genetic testing, bloodwork, scans and accommodation near the hospital. Some of those expenses were incurred outside Greece.

Can your partner attend a C-section in Greece?

It depends on the hospital’s policies and medical circumstances.

At Mitera, Eddie wasn’t permitted inside the operating theatre for our planned C-section. We hadn’t realised this beforehand, having experienced different arrangements in Croatia.

We’d strongly recommend confirming exactly where partners can be present during preparation, delivery and recovery.

How do you register a baby’s birth in Greece?

We first completed paperwork at Mitera, providing passports, our marriage certificate and other personal information. We also needed an authorised Greek translation of our marriage certificate and Greek transliterations of family names.

After resolving those requirements, we visited the local civil registry office around a week after Alma’s birth. Obtaining her official Greek birth certificate took about five minutes.

Requirements can differ depending on your circumstances, so check with the hospital and relevant registry office beforehand.

Does being born in Greece automatically give a baby Greek citizenship?

No, not generally. Greece primarily bases citizenship on parentage, although there are specific legal exceptions.

Alma’s Greek birth certificate documented her birth in Greece, but it didn’t automatically make her a Greek citizen. We obtained her American citizenship documentation separately through the US Embassy in Athens.

How long does it take to get a US passport for a baby born in Greece?

In our case, we requested an embassy appointment ten days after Alma’s birth and attended about a week later.

Her US passport and Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) arrived 28 days after the appointment.

The combined application cost us US$235. Processing times and documentary requirements can change, so check the US Embassy’s current guidance before planning international travel.

This article describes our personal experience of private maternity care and birth registration in Greece. It isn’t medical, legal or immigration advice. Hospital procedures, prices, nationality requirements and government processes can change, and individual circumstances vary.