Where you live matters for maternity care in Georgia

ATLANTA -- More than one in three Georgia counties where thousands of Georgia mothers give birth each year is a “maternal care desert,” according to a report released Tuesday by the March of Dimes. Partly as a result, the report found, 17% of those who gave birth received no or inadequate prenatal care.

The finding on Georgia’s lack of resources for pregnant women, especially those in rural and lower-income communities, is the sober backdrop to the recent announcement that Georgia’s rate of maternal mortality remains among the worst in the nation, and surged during the early pandemic. The state’s Maternal Mortality Report found that almost all maternal deaths in Georgia were preventable.

It also found Black women were more than two times as likely as white women to die from pregnancy.

“I think that it’s time to move forward and find ways to ensure that all across Georgia as well as in the U.S. we have access to maternity care,” said Dr. Jose Cordero, a professor of public health at the University of Georgia and former board member of the March of Dimes.

The Georgia Department of Public Health, which is tasked with monitoring and combating maternal mortality in the state, said it would not comment for this story.

Overwhelmingly, when women die during pregnancy or for reasons related to pregnancy in the year after giving birth, there were symptoms that could have been avoided or treated better, the state has found. The main causes in Georgia included hemorrhage, mental health conditions, heart and vascular conditions and blood clots, and high blood pressure associated with pregnancy. More than half of maternal deaths...