Following the abrupt closure in August of the only maternity ward within 40 miles, Alisha Alderson decided to go to Boise, Idaho — a two-hour drive through a mountain pass — to be closer to a hospi…
Cancer-stricken mom who refused treatment, abortion in ultimate sacrifice to save baby now has months to live
“We don’t feel safe being so far away from a birthing center,” said Alderson, noting her advanced maternal age of 45. “I was sitting in a hair salon a few days ago and some people started joking about me giving birth on the side of the road. And in that moment, I just pictured all the things that could go wrong with my baby and broke down in tears in front of strangers.”
The closures have worsened so-called “maternity care deserts” — counties with no hospitals or birth centers that offer obstetric care and no OB providers. More than two million women of childbearing age live in such areas, the majority of which are rural. Hospital CEO John Tucker said lack of money was the main reason for closing the hospital’s obstetric unit, and it was a necessary step toward saving the entire facility, which has been struggling financially for a decade.
The percentage of births there covered by Medicaid — 70% — far exceeded the national average of 42%. Tennessee’s Medicaid program paid the hospital about $1,700 per delivery for each mom, a fraction of what the hospital needed, Tucker said. Evans fears that things like preterm deliveries, infant mortality and low-birthweight babies — a measure in which the county already ranks poorly — are bound to get worse.
During a recent visit, Katie O’Brien of Paris handed her a new photo of her son Bennett — the third of her children Evans delivered. The two women cradled the baby and hugged. Betsy Baarspul of Nashville said she had an emergency C-section in a hospital for her first child. She’s now pregnant with her third, and described the difference between hospital care and birth center care as “night and day.”Some states and communities are taking steps to create more freestanding birth centers.
A lack of data and the small number of births in freestanding centers or homes prevents researchers from fully understanding the relationship between birth settings and maternal deaths or severe injuries and complications, according to a 2020 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
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