(LifeSiteNews) — Samantha recently became pregnant and, as her baby grew, eventually had to admit that regular jeans were not going to cut it. So she set out to buy a few maternity basics, only to find that every department store she walked into had quietly ditched its maternity section. Stores that used to have full aisles now had nothing but one sad little rack. Plus-sized clothing now hung where expectant mamas once shopped.
As an employee of the Population Research Institute (PRI), she was well aware of the falling fertility rate in the U.S. She also knew that supply follows demand – stores stock what sells. But she hadn’t noticed how the birth dearth was changing the world around her until she needed maternity clothes herself. The reality of it was jarring for all of us.
And it turns out clothing options for expectant mothers aren’t the only thing disappearing. Maternity care is too.
A March of Dimes 2024 Report brings this reality into sharp focus. Across the nation, it reports, “maternity care deserts” are spreading. These “deserts” refer to counties with no hospital or birthing center that delivers babies and no OB/GYNs or certified nurse midwives. More than a third of counties in the United States fall into this category, and plenty more barely meet the threshold for limited access.
In other words, millions of American women live in places where access to prenatal care and delivering their baby safely is far harder than it should be.
Why? Because their local hospital quietly closed its labor and delivery unit upon deciding it was not financially viable.
This is not just a statistic. It changes the entire experience of pregnancy – for the worse. Women living in “maternity care deserts” tend to start prenatal care later, have fewer total appointments, and face higher risks of complications. Many moms have to drive up to an hour, or even more, for basic checkups, and end up delivering far from home. And they are more likely to have their babies prematurely or give birth to low-birth-weight babies.
These are not small inconveniences. They add stress as expectant moms and dads imagine an hour-long drive to the hospital while in the throes of labor. They add cost in terms of travel expenses and lost wages. And, in some cases, they constitute a real danger to the health of both mother and child. Taken together, they send a message to couples thinking about starting a family that bringing a child into the world is not supported.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the pro-abortion media has spread the narrative that pro-life legislation is to blame for “maternity care deserts,” claiming that states which value life have driven away doctors. But while it is true that some medical residents prefer training in states with permissive abortion laws, this is not the whole picture. The Association of American Medical Colleges admits, “Nationally, the number of residency applicants continues to exceed the number of training slots available,” including all states with pro-life legislation in place.
The reason maternity units are closing right now is basic economics. Birth numbers are falling, there are fewer trained staff, and the labor and delivery wards of hospitals often lose money. As Trilliant Health notes, “The strain for L&D units is exacerbated by slowing population growth, declining birth rates and the limited scalability of smaller, low-volume hospitals.”
Making the problem even worse, many states also heavily restrict midwives and birthing centers, further limiting mothers’ access to maternity care.
This all goes back to depopulation, the issue that PRI has been warning about for decades. The U.S. fertility rate has been dropping for decades. There are many reasons why many Americans have become averse to having children, including the rising cost of housing and other financial pressures, not to mention a popular culture that devalues marriage and family.
But we rarely talk about how disappearing maternity care plays into this decline.
If starting a family means hours of driving for each and every prenatal appointment, or if birth means delivering a baby in a hospital two counties away, it absolutely affects how couples think about children. Feeling supported in pregnancy matters. Feeling like your community is set up to support a growing family matters.
What makes this even more striking is that rural communities, which have higher birth rates than the American average, are losing maternity services the fastest. Hundreds of rural hospitals have shut down their maternity wards and stopped delivering babies. Rural families are still choosing life, but the health care infrastructure to support their choice is crumbling at the very moment they need it most.
If we want to reverse declining fertility, we have to support expectant moms from conception through birth – and after. Pregnancy is challenging enough already without the added fear of financial setbacks, or the worry that you might be giving birth in the back seat of your car because the hospital is so far away.
We need to rebuild a reliable maternity care system nationwide that lets women start pregnancy with confidence.
And while we are at it, let’s Make Birth Free by mandating that insurance cover all the costs of birth. There is legislation before Congress to do exactly this.
When couples know that maternity care is accessible and affordable, higher birth rates will follow naturally. Strong families will be formed and America’s future will be assured.
And, as Samantha notes, while we are fixing that, it would not hurt to bring back a few decent maternity clothing sections too.
