Latest news with #FatCamera
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Maryland's gains in maternal mental health stall as other states, nation advance, report finds
While Maryland falls ahead of the national average, mental health advocates say that more can be done to boost maternal mental health in the state. (Photo by FatCamera/Getty stock photo) Maryland is slightly ahead of most states when it comes to supporting maternal mental health, but other states have been gaining ground in the last year while Maryland has been static, according to an analysis that assesses states on a A-F grading scale. The 2025 Maternal Mental Health State Report Card, released Thursday, gave Maryland a 'C' this year, pushing the state just ahead of the national average score of a C-. But health advocates note that 26 other states boosted their 'grades' over last year's report card, and say Maryland needs to increase mental health screening efforts to help improve its score for next year's report card. 'Maryland has a lot to be proud of in terms of its grade. It is performing better than most states on maternal mental health policies,' said Caitlin Murphy, one of the researchers who worked on the report. 'Maryland is doing better than the national average, which is great … There's a few key areas where Maryland could continue to improve.' The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health released its third annual report Thursday to update grades on states' accessibility to maternal mental health services. 'The good news is that the U.S. national grade has improved slightly from a D+ to a C- … We're also seeing 26 state grades improving this year alone, with five state's earning B's,' Murphy said. 'We know there's still a lot more work to be done on 19 states that are still earning D or F grades.' This year, five states received B grades, 27 states received C grades, 17 states received D grades and 2 states received F's. That's an improvement from last year, when 24 states received D grades and 5 states receiving failing grades. 'Folks are realizing just how crucial it is to address this. And not only to destigmatize maternal mental health, but really put the policies in place at the state level and the health insurance level to get … all the things we know are needed to support mental health for moms,' Murphy said. Report: Md. shows 'incremental' gains on maternal mental health, but still needs work 'Folks are very aware of postpartum depression, but this also includes postpartum anxiety, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), psychosis – which is much rarer. But, there is starting to be more understanding around that,' she said. The report focuses on several areas where states can improve maternal mental health access to services and health care coverage across the states. Some metrics considered include Medicaid coverage, access to maternal mental health providers, and data from insurance coverage and claims for services. One category assesses whether Medicaid requires screenings and data collection for mental health concerns such as prenatal depression and post-partum depression. Last year's report card docked Maryland over not requiring data collection on mental health screening – an area that Maryland lost points on again this year. 'States can require their health plans to report on rates of maternal mental health screening,' Murphy said. 'Right now, Maryland does not require its health plans, and in particular its Medicaid health plans, to report on rates of maternal mental health screening.' Dan Martin, senior director of public policy for the Mental Health Association of Maryland, said that the report card shows 'that there is room to improve in Maryland,' including in screening for maternal mental health needs. 'Screening and identification for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders really improves the likelihood for recovery of the mother. It supports healthy childhood development,' he said. 'It (maternal mental health) can have profound impacts on the health of the mother and her infant and her family.' That doesn't mean that those screenings are not happening, Murphy noted, just that the state doesn't require collection of that data, which can make tracking statewide progress difficult. 'The more health plans that are reporting out the screening rates, the better idea we're able to have of if it's actually happening – and that's one of the biggest gaps right now in terms of data,' she said. 'We don't know yet if maternal mental health disorders are reducing, and part of that is the need for screening to be more universal and for screening to be required, so we can actually track this over time.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Maryland Department of Health said in a written statement Thursday that the state is 'committed to all women in Maryland achieving and maintaining their highest level of physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being.' The policy center added new metrics this year that measured whether states invested in group prenatal care for the Medicaid populations. Murphy said such programs help connect pregnant people and new mothers to peers and social supports. Maryland earned a few extra points for programs such as the Medicaid CenteringPregnancy Program, which brings people with a similar due date together to will learn about what to expect during pregnancy as a community. But it was not enough to boost the state's grade to a C+, Murphy said. She noted that Maryland is ahead of other states when it comes to health care coverage for pregnancy through Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program targeted for lower-income families and other specific populations. But with members of Congress deliberating significant cuts to Medicaid, Murphy worries that states will backslide on progress made over the last few years. State officials, advocates fear impact of expected Medicaid cuts in House bill 'Even though states are making this incremental progress on maternal mental health, we also know that right now Congress is putting forward proposed policies to cut Medicaid and Health and Human Services programs,' she said. 'If those kinds of cuts go through, we are going to see state scores and the overall national score backslide.' KFF, a nonpartisan health research organization, reports that in 2023, 41% of births in the United States were financed by Medicaid. In Maryland, about 42% of births were supported by Medicaid coverage that year. 'That statistic is often surprising to folks, but it reflects the fact that this is a really important source of coverage,' Murphy said. She said that interest in maternal mental health has been increasing over the last few years and hopes that increased awareness of the issue will help deter Congress from cutting supports for maternal mental health services. 'It's been wonderful that over the past several years, I think people have started to understand the depths of how important maternal mental health is and also how far we have to go,' Murphy said. 'This is a real failure of our health care systems to support our moms and families … It's really a matter of life or death.'
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Advocates for Black maternal health press NC General Assembly to approve ‘MOMnibus' legislation
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest maternal mortality report found that in 2023, Black women nationally were more than three times more likely than white women to die during or after childbirth. (FatCamera/Getty Images) On the week that North Carolina senators were busy rolling out a $32.6B spending plan, it was difficult to gain attention for legislation that some consider a longshot this session. But Senator Natalie Murdock (D-Chatham, Durham) refused to allow budget week to shift her focus from what she sees as the critical need to pass a bill crafted to improve Black maternal health outcomes. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. And Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related health problems than white women. Murdock has repeated those sobering facts for more than three years now, as she tries to get the Republican-controlled Senate to advance the MOMnibus 3.0 Act. Gabriel Scott, an MPA with the North Carolina Coalition of the National Council of Negro Women, joined Murdock last week in advocating for Senate Bill 571/House Bill 725. Scott said when she went into labor at 25 weeks, doctors were dismissive. 'I needed pain medication, I needed help, I needed something. They did not listen.' After she delivered her twins, complications with the placenta and an excessive loss of blood, left her husband terrified she might need a blood transfusion. 'They finally had an anesthesiologist come to give me medication. My husband said, can you at least tell me what the medication is? And the anesthesiologist laughed and said, 'Oh, this is typically medicine we give to war vets who have had limbs blown off,'' Scott recounted. 'They took it as a joke. The doctor continued to shove his arm in me.' Hours later in recovery, a white female doctor came to her room acknowledging the difficulty of the delivery. 'And she said, there are things that we know we do well at the hospital and then there are things that we know we don't do well, and one of those things is our treatment of African-American women and childbirth.' The same doctor suggested both she and her husband might seek mental health help. Scott gives thanks to God that her twin girls are healthy. But she's been dealing with pelvic pain for over four years and the trauma of doctors who didn't listen to her. Dr. Charity Watkins, an assistant professor of social work at North Carolina Central University and a maternal health researcher at Duke University, shared her own terrifying story of pregnancy-related heart failure. 'I always feel it is important for me to introduce myself using my professional roles. Maybe my doctoral degree will save me from the daily mistreatment I experienced because of my dark complexion. Maybe leaning into the perceived prestige of being a professor will protect me from poor perceptions and negative stereotypes associated with being a Black woman,' Watkins told a room of reporters on Wednesday. After her pregnancy, Watkins presented with classic heart failure symptoms, a family history of heart disease, and a recent cesarean delivery followed by hemorrhaging. She was told by a doctor that maybe it was the flu. 'What could have led to me receiving quality health care without having to prove I'm worthy of being treated as a human being?' Watkins believes the MOMnibus 3.0 Act would have changed her birth story, with doctors who would not have dismissed her as being over-dramatic or 'just another Black woman exaggerating her pain levels.' The legislation would direct the NC Department of Health and Human Services to establish and operate a maternal mortality prevention grant initiative that would establish or expand programs for the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity among Black women. 'It's time for us to provide Black mothers with more confidence in their care before, during, and after childbirth,' said Watkins. The legislation would also require NCDHHS, in collaboration with community-based organizations led by Black women and a historically Black college and universities (HBCUs) that primarily serves minority populations to create evidence-based implicit bias training program for health care professionals. Patients receiving care at a perinatal care facility would also receive a list of their rights including being informed of continuing health care requirements following discharge. The bill would also earmark $3 million for each year of the 2025-27 biennium for the UNC Board of Governors for recruiting, training, and retaining a diverse workforce of lactation consultants in North Carolina. Reps. Zack Hawkins (D-Durham) and Julie von Haefen (D-Wake) are advocating for HB 725, the companion bill in the state House. Hawkins said his two sisters and his wife had their own stories in which doctors were not 'listening appropriately' to their pain, and the fact that they knew their own bodies. Von Haefen said while it may not seem like her place to speak on Black health, she also knew she could not turn away. 'This should not be something that's put solely on Black women. White women need to be allies in this fight, because we are all mothers.' In North Carolina Black women are 1.8 times more likely to die from childbirth, two-thirds of these deaths are preventable, according to Murdock.
