Pregnant in France: Declaring your pregnancy in France

Declaring your pregnancy in France is an essential step in the pregnancy journey. You will make a declaration to the CAF (Caisse d’allocations familiales), child benefit services (in the States, this would be the equivalent to welfare) and Assurance Maladie, national healthcare. Declaring your pregnancy to these 2 services attests to your condition and entitles you to pregnancy and future family benefits, such as 100% coverage starting from the first day of the sixth month of your pregnancy until twelve days after the birth. This includes the 100% reimbursement of all medical examinations, coverage of the hospitalization costs for childbirth, 7 childbirth preparation classes with a midwife, and 16 weeks (for your first child) maternity leave.

When to declare the pregnancy

This declaration is done at the end of the first trimester (before the end of the 3rd month) and can be done by either you or your midwife. This declaration is made to the Assurance Maladie and allows your pregnancy to be covered by the health insurance system as well as any future benefits be disbursed. Thankfully this step does not require a lot nor does it take a lot of time.

Who declares the pregnancy

If your midwife or doctor is declaring it for you, you’ve got nothing to do except wait to get mail from the CAF/Assurance Maladie.

If you are declaring it yourself, you’ll receive a form that is completed by your doctor or midwife (Premier examen médical prénatal – Cerfa 10112*06). This is a 3 page form (2 blue and 1 purple) that you will need to send to 2 different services: CAF and Assurance Maladie. You can find an example of what this form looks like here . You’ll then send each form to your respective service closest to you.

What to expect after the declaration is made

Once the declaration has been sent off, your next step will be waiting on word from CAF on how to open an account (if you do not already have one) and set up your account. You’ll also need to be on the lookout for information from the Assurance Maladie for next steps as well.

After my declaration was sent in, I received a calendar from Ameli that gave me all the dates of when I needed to have each appointment made by through out my entire pregnancy as well as the start and end dates of my maternity leave. If you log into your Ameli account, you can access guides under the “Ma Maternité” section and you can also download the “La Doudou Liste” for all the administrative tasks, health information, medical visits, etc… that you will need throughout your pregnancy.

Prime de naissance

The prime de naissance is an aide that is dispersed at the beginning of the 7th month of pregnancy from the CAF.

You must declare your pregnancy by the 14th week of gestation to the CAF and Ameli.

If you are a European citizen, you must be able to provide proof of meeting the residency requirements. If you are foreign and on a residency permit, you must provide proof of valid residency.

For the 2024 fiscal year, your amount is based off of your 2022 tax return. CAF takes into account all income received in France and abroad (salaries, unemployment benefits and daily social security allowances, pensions, income from assets, deductible expenses, etc.) when calculating the amount of aide that will be given out. Below is the table for the 2024 year.