“Maternity deserts can be deadly” headlined a recent story in the McComb Enterprise Journal. The March of Dimes defines maternity care deserts as counties with no hospitals that provide obstetric care and no certified obstetric providers.
Unnecessary deaths are no surprise in a state where 42 of 82 counties qualify as maternity care deserts, which suffers from a critical shortage of maternity care providers, and which boasts the highest rates for infant and maternity mortality.
Two separate conferences held last month in Jackson focused on improving access to health care. The American Cancer Society partnered with non-profit Together for Hope at Duling Hall. Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church focused its annual T.W. Lewis Lecture Series on Jesus and a Just Society on “Access to Health Care: a Gospel Response.” At both events, key solutions identified to help reduce maternal care deserts included: 1) integrating midwives and their model of care into hospitals; and 2) training more physicians in obstetrics care.
Two medical professionals with Meridian connections are at the forefront of efforts to do just that.
Meridian native Janice Taleff Scaggs, D.N.P, leads an initiative to implement the midwife model of care at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). Long-time Meridian physician Lee Valentine, D.O., helps lead an initiative to train family physicians in obstetrics care.
“Research shows that integrating midwifery care into a healthcare system improves maternal and neonatal outcomes and is a cost-effective safe option for maternal care,” explained Scaggs. Dr. J. Martin Tucker, chair of UMMC’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, brought Scaggs on board in 2020 to help integrate midwifery back into the system. “Having CNMs as team members and collaborators enhances patient care as well as student and resident education,” he told UMMC News Stories.
Dr. Valentine, a co-founder of the EC Health Net family medicine residency program in Meridian, and Dr. Melissa Stephens are designing a one-year fellowship program to qualify family physicians in prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care.
Valentine told Mississippi Today that most family physicians avoid delivering babies because of high costs for malpractice insurance. That cost falls considerably when physicians get obstetrics training and can prove competence to a malpractice insurer.
“Patients sometimes don’t get any (prenatal care) and they show up in the emergency room delivering,” Valentine told Mississippi Today. “That’s got to change.”
“UMMC is poised to provide an evidence-based intervention for improving maternal and neonatal outcomes in Mississippi that could be a model for the rest of the state,” Scaggs explained. As her program grows, Scaggs foresees UMMC expanding nurse-midwifery clinics to serve maternity care deserts – first in deserts near UMMC in Claiborne, Copiah, Simpson, and Yazoo Counties then later in other parts of the state.
Mississippi moms and babies need both initiatives to succeed.
“Do not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother” – Deuteronomy 15:7.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.
12 comments:
Yessss! Let us keep spending taxpayer money on the non-productive breeders! That will definitely help this impoverished state!
I understand that Mr. Crawford is trying to earn his hospital association salary, but every once in a while he should slip the truth in. That truth being that the high infant mortality rate is mostly the fault of the mothers having poor health.
This comes straight from the Mississippi State Department of Health;
Mississippi has a high rate of women with chronic medical conditions. Preterm birth (delivery before 37 weeks of pregnancy) is the leading cause of infant death in Mississippi. Infants born preterm are at an increased risk of breathing complications, infections and brain injury.
No amount of money, no number of buildings, no number of caring professionals, can overcome poor personal choices. Obesity is rampant in this state, with morbid obesity quickly gaining. In my opinion, this problem should be addressed beginning in the elementary school years.
Follow the lawsuits. A fair/competent judicial system and jury pools are key considerations for any investments and business establishments.
Before I clicked on this story, I knew that the commenters would have something against efforts to reduce infant mortality. And, boy, y'all didn't disappoint. Y'all apparently prefer kids to be dead--at least if they are born to poor mothers.
Y'all are morally disgusting.
Thank you to the middle-aged rum-drinker in Belhaven @ 1:26. Time to flip them wangs on the hibachi.
Not-too-sure about the rum-drinker... or Belhaven..? But we get get your point.
@1:26. I agree with you.
I know of Ob/Gyn doctors that stop doing OB because of insurance. I can't imagine why a Family Practitioner would want to take on the dual patient liability of delivering babies. Prenatal care is one thing but actually delivering with a "trained" FP but a hospital that lacks the training and proper nursery care seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
The post at 10:08 posits a much better perspective than the virtue signaling shared by 1:26.
Can't fix population loss with wasteful subsidies. You can't live in Podunk and expect taxpayers to backstop the bill for the same full range of health care options as offered in dense population centers. If you want a ready availability to everything health care under the sun move your asses out of those areas of Mississippi that have, and are, folding like lawn chairs.
8:45 is right.
There is only so much one person can do FOR someone else. At some point the second person has to take responsibility and do some work himself or herself.
November 5, 2023 at 8:50 AM "non-productive breeders", really? Shame on you. You will have to answer for that one day.
Pregnancy complications occur in "productive" citizens as well.
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