Lay midwives won't solve gap in rural maternity care, according to GateHouse Media analysis of data

Access to obstetric care has been dwindling in rural America for years. Midwives have been touted 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.