A former state health director, a family physician, and a coalition of healthcare organizations are working to bring perinatal care closer to home for expectant and new mothers across North Carolina. With $2.8 million from the Charlotte-based Leon Levine Foundation, the group seeks to bring prenatal and postpartum care to at least 10 rural counties that are located in maternity deserts.

Maternity Deserts in North Carolina

Perinatal data from the nonprofit March of Dimes shows that 38 counties in North Carolina are considered maternity deserts or have low access to maternity care. More than half of those counties don’t have a hospital with a labor and delivery unit, a birthing center, or obstetric providers at all.

Physician Shannon Dowler, who is leading the effort to expand access to perinatal care, said the program aims to set up a shared maternity care model. This is an arrangement where pregnant women receive prenatal services from a local provider but deliver their baby and receive immediate postpartum care at a hospital.

“We want every woman to have access to a medical home for her pregnancy without having to travel an hour or two hours to get that care,” Dowler said.

Shared Maternity Care Model

The shared maternity care model allows providers to get creative in how they provide that care in maternity deserts. In especially hard-to-reach places, like deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it could look like doctors traveling in vans or buses to meet pregnant women where they are.

Having no prenatal or postpartum care at all can be even more costly. Lack of access to those services is associated with higher maternal deaths during and immediately following the pregnancy.

The good news is that expanding maternity services through a shared care model is easily scalable and less expensive than offering new services at a hospital, according to former state health director Betsey Tilson.

Original reporting: Carolina Public Press — read the source article.