Lay midwives won't solve rural maternity care gap, according to GateHouse Media data analysis - Entrepreneur Generations

Access to obstetrical care has been dwindling in rural America for years. Midwives have been touted by many as a way to help close the coverage gap, but a new data analysis by GateHouse Media shows that may not be the case. 

"An estimated 5 million women live in maternity care deserts, defined as a county with neither an obstetric provider nor a hospital offering obstetric care, according to the March of Dimes, which links lack of access to maternal mortality and poor birth outcomes," Lucille Sherman reports for GateHouse. Nearly 1,100 maternity care deserts exist nationwide, but a GateHouse analysis of more than 3,000 non-nurse midwives showed that very few live in those deserts. 

"There are so many counties that don’t have a single health care provider. A big part of obstetric care is the prenatal care, preconception care and postpartum care," Jeffrey Goldberg, legislative chair for the Kentucky Section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Sherman. "Lay midwifery is not going to be a solution for that." 

The analysis features excellent data presentation through multimedia maps and is well-worth a read.

from The Rural Blog http://bit.ly/2JxNkiZ Lay midwives won't solve rural maternity care gap, according to GateHouse Media data analysis - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet