A prenatal appointment does a mother very little good if she cannot get there.
Consider what that appointment might require: borrowing a car, finding gas money, arranging care for the children already at home, and asking to leave work when losing those hours means coming up short on rent. If the ride falls through, the medical chart may record a missed appointment. It will not necessarily show everything it took to try to make it.
That is the gap we need to talk about in Mississippi: the distance between telling women to get care and making care possible.
The more I look at the maternal and infant health research, the more convinced I am that practical help belongs at the center of our response. Families need medical care they can reach and support that lasts after delivery. We ought to be building both with urgency.
We already have the evidence
In 2024, 323 Mississippi babies died before their first birthdays, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health. [1]
Mississippi’s infant mortality rate that year was approximately 9.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The national rate was about 5.5. That puts Mississippi’s rate roughly 75 percent higher than the country’s overall rate. [2] [3]
The situation was serious enough that, on August 21, 2025, the state health department declared infant mortality a public health emergency. [4]
Those numbers represent children and people who loved them. A report can count a death. It cannot contain what a family has lost.
The 2025 March of Dimes Report Card adds another hard fact: 15 percent of Mississippi babies were born preterm, before 37 weeks of pregnancy, in 2024. That was 5,017 babies, and the highest rate among the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Mississippi received an F. [5]
The maternal findings are just as urgent. In its review of pregnancy-related deaths from 2019 through 2023, Mississippi’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee determined that 60 of the 73 deaths reviewed, or 82.2 percent, were preventable. That means reviewers identified at least some chance that reasonable changes in care, systems, community support, or other circumstances could have averted those deaths. [6]
We cannot read that finding and shrug. It gives us a responsibility to examine where the opportunities were missed and put people, resources, and accountability behind doing better.
Getting to care is part of getting care
The 2026 March of Dimes maternity access report, using 2024 access data, identifies 45.1 percent of Mississippi counties as maternity-care deserts. These are counties with no hospital or birth center offering labor and delivery services and no obstetric clinician. Nearly half the state’s counties meet that definition. [7]
The same report estimates that 119,000 women in Mississippi live more than 30 minutes from a hospital with labor and delivery services. [7]
Even that travel estimate leaves a lot out. A drive time cannot tell us whether a mother has a working car, whether she can afford the trip, or whether somebody can keep her toddler. It does not tell us whether the nearest facility can provide the particular care she needs.
Think about the difference between being told to come back next week and knowing you can actually make that happen. For a family with dependable transportation and paid leave, those words may be straightforward. For a family already stretched thin, another appointment can mean another round of arrangements that could fall apart.
The need is urgent in cities, too. In Jackson, 20.3 percent of babies were born preterm in 2024, according to the same March of Dimes report card. That is about one in five. [5]
Living near a hospital does not settle who is watching the children, how a mother will get there, or whether she can find an available appointment. Rural Mississippi and Jackson may need different solutions. Families in both deserve care they can use.
Mississippi has made an important change by extending continuous postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months, effective April 1, 2023. That is real progress. [8]
Now we have to help families use that coverage. An insurance card cannot arrange a ride or create an appointment where none is available. Coverage, medical capacity, and practical support have to work together.
The mother still needs care after the baby is born
The state’s 2019–2023 review found that 38.4 percent of the pregnancy-related deaths it examined occurred between 43 days and one year after pregnancy. More than a third happened beyond the six-week mark. [6]
That should change how we think about showing up for a family.
A mother may still be recovering from surgery, managing follow-up appointments, struggling emotionally, or trying to get back to a baby in the NICU. The groceries still run out. The older children still need to get to school. Her own needs can be pushed further down the list while she tries to keep everything moving.
Maternal mental health belongs in this conversation, too. In May 2026, MSDH identified mental health conditions among the leading causes of pregnancy-related death and called for screening, accessible treatment, and stronger community support. [9]
Our response should make it easier for a mother to tell someone she is struggling and reach qualified help. It should include follow-through on medical referrals, support for grief after a loss, and practical assistance while she recovers.
Sometimes the immediate need is gas money to get back to the NICU. Sometimes it is groceries before the weekend, diapers before discharge, or somebody helping arrange a ride to her own appointment.
Those are specific needs we can organize around. We should know whether the ride happened, whether the referral reached a provider, and whether the mother is still waiting for help.
We have to face the unequal burden
Mississippi’s 2024 infant mortality rate was 15.2 deaths per 1,000 live births among Black non-Hispanic infants, compared with 5.8 among White non-Hispanic infants. The rate for Black infants was about 2.6 times as high. [1]
That disparity belongs near the center of this discussion. A statewide average can hide just how unequal the outcomes are.
We need to listen to Black mothers, bring them into decisions about the services being designed, and examine whether care is timely, respectful, and responsive to what they say they need. We should direct resources according to the barriers families face and check whether those barriers actually change.
Every mother deserves to be taken seriously. Every family deserves help without having to make its circumstances look more acceptable to the person holding the clipboard.
What a practical response could look like
This is why I want Mississippi to take the maternal healthcare hub concept we have been developing through The Porchlight Initiative seriously. The proposed network remains in the planning stage, and its purpose is straightforward: help families connect with qualified care and keep that connection from falling apart.
Picture a trusted local place where a mother could get help arranging appointments and transportation, connect privately with a clinician through telehealth when appropriate, and attend scheduled visits provided by healthcare partners. A navigator could help her work through benefits and referrals. Doulas, birth educators, and postpartum support workers could provide nonmedical support within their roles.
Licensed healthcare partners would provide and direct medical care. The hub’s role would be to organize access, practical assistance, and follow-up around that care. Delivery services and emergencies would still require appropriately equipped medical facilities and emergency systems.
The goal would be continuity: someone helping a mother reach the right service, checking whether she got there, and helping with the next obstacle. Support would continue through pregnancy and the first year afterward.
There is already work to build alongside. The state’s infant-mortality emergency response called for more prenatal opportunities through targeted county health departments, stronger community health worker programs and home visiting, and partnerships with hospitals and medical providers. [4]
A responsible hub proposal should connect with those efforts. It needs committed clinical partners, reliable funding, trained staff, privacy protections, and clear procedures. It also needs honest measurement: completed appointments, successful referrals, continued postpartum engagement, and families’ own accounts of whether getting help became easier.
Good intentions are the beginning. Families need to be able to depend on what comes next.
Why this belongs to all of us
The first reason to act is simple: mothers and babies are worth the effort. A woman deserves care for her own health and recovery. A baby deserves the strongest start we can help provide. Their worth does not depend on income, marital status, where they live, or how neatly their lives fit somebody else’s expectations.
The consequences also reach beyond one hospital room. Consider a family trying to manage a NICU stay: a parent may miss work, a grandparent may take over school pickup, and the household may be paying for repeated trips while still trying to keep the lights on. Serious illness and loss can change the responsibilities of an entire family.
Employers, churches, schools, local governments, and neighbors all have a reason to care about whether families can remain healthy and stable. We should plan for those connections when we decide what deserves funding and attention.
For those of us who call ourselves pro-life, the obligation ought to be especially clear. Our commitment should be visible in prenatal care, safe delivery, postpartum recovery, and the ordinary needs that arrive with a new baby. It should be visible when helping requires time, money, patience, and another trip across town.
A mother’s access to help should never depend on whether she shares our faith, politics, or family story. If we believe her life and her child’s life matter, our response needs to make room for both of them as they are.
The next step has to be practical
We have enough evidence to start asking more of ourselves, and we each have a part in the work.
Policymakers and public funders should put sustained resources behind maternal care, the workforce that provides it, and the transportation and coordination that make it reachable. A program needs enough stability for families and providers to count on it beyond its first announcement.
Hospitals, clinics, and community organizations should build clear referral relationships and decide who follows up when an appointment is missed. We should be able to ask whether a mother reached care and get an answer.
Churches, businesses, and donors can fund specific, recurring needs: transportation, practical postpartum support, safe infant sleep spaces, and trained people who help families navigate care. The ongoing work deserves as much attention as the day the donations are photographed.
Neighbors can start close to home. Ask a mother what she needs. Offer a meal, help with the school run, or a ride you can reliably provide. Respect her privacy. Keep checking in after the first week. Help her connect with professionals when the need calls for professional care.
And all of us should expect honesty about results. We should learn what is working, fix what is failing, and listen when families tell us that a service is harder to use than we thought.
The next mother trying to arrange a ride has an appointment date. The family driving back to the NICU has another trip to make. Their needs are happening on a calendar, whether our plans are ready or not.
Mississippi’s mothers and babies deserve a response they can reach, understand, and depend on. We know enough to begin doing that work. Now we need to follow through.
Sources
[1] Mississippi State Department of Health — Infant Mortality Report December 2025; 2024 infant death data Open source
[2] CDC National Center for Health Statistics — Mississippi Stats of the States Updated October 6, 2026; final 2024 data Open source
[3] CDC National Center for Health Statistics — Mortality in the United States 2024 Data Brief 548, January 2026 Open source
[4] MSDH Declares Public Health Emergency on Infant Mortality August 21, 2025 Open source
[5] March of Dimes — 2025 Report Card for Mississippi 2025 report card; 2024 preterm birth data Open source
[6] Mississippi State Department of Health — Maternal Mortality Report December 2025; review of 2019–2023 deaths Open source
[7] March of Dimes — Maternity Care Access in Mississippi 2026 state report; access data reflect 2024 Open source
[8] Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — Mississippi State Plan Amendment MS 23 0015 Approved December 13, 2023; effective April 1, 2023 Open source
[9] MSDH — Awareness of Maternal Mental Health Issues Saves Lives May 5, 2026 Open source