Mississippi Health Leaders Collaborate to Reduce Infant, Maternal Mortality

VICKSBURG, Miss.— Whitney Batteast was 22 years old when she found out she was pregnant with her daughter.

Late in her pregnancy, she went to the hospital because she was having contractions five minutes apart. The doctors told her she had Braxton-Hicks contractions, also known as false labor, and observed her for a while in the hospital before sending her home.

After telling her grandmother about her diagnosis, she spent the next eight hours alone in her home suffering excruciating pain.

“I was in so much pain that I couldn’t fathom to call anyone,” Batteast said on Sept. 20 during a conference in Vicksburg, Miss.

By the time she returned to the hospital, she was almost nine centimeters dilated, “just enough time to get the IV in, change my clothes and push.” A crowd of students, doctors and nurses helped and observed Batteast give birth at a teaching hospital.

“The next day, the nurse came to help me to the bathroom and she said, ‘Be careful of your stitches.’ I said, ‘What stitches? Why do I have stitches?’” Batteast recalled.

The nurse told her she had an episiotomy, which is a surgical incision made in the tissue between the vagina and the anus that widens the vaginal opening during childbirth.

“I’m 22, 135 pounds, great elasticity. I’m pretty sure I would’ve been fine,” Batteast said. “And that was my first experience of realizing that that was something I should’ve been asked for my consent. That shouldn’t have been done without me knowing and I didn’t know why it had to happen.”

Batteast, who is now the executive director of an organization focused on helping moms before and after they give birth called Pickles & Popsicles, shared her story on Sept. 20 at a Hear Her panel at the Mississippi Maternal Health Conference in Vicksburg, Miss. The Centers for Disease Control’s Hear Her campaign aims to raise awareness of inequities in health care and reduce preventable deaths by learning about early maternal warning signs.

Mississippi Has Nation’s Worst Health Outcomes

The Mississippi State Department of Health’s Maternal and Infant Health Bureau hosted the maternal health conference to prioritize maternal health, spread solutions and educate health-care workers. 

MSDH recognizes September as National Infant Mortality Awareness Month to bring awareness to infant deaths that happen from birth until one year of age. Mississippi’s infant death rate was 9.2 per 1,000 births, MSDH reported in 2022, the most recent year of data collection.

Neither MSDH nor national organizations recognize a maternal mortality awareness month, though. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has chosen Jan. 23, 2025, as Maternal Health Awareness Day. 

“Focusing on maternal and infant deaths had to be a top priority of the agency coming out of the pandemic because they’re the most egregious deaths, I would say. Out of all the deaths, … I think none more are more tragic than our preventable maternal and infant deaths,” Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney said at the conference on Sept. 20.

From 2016 to 2020, Mississippi had 167 maternal deaths; Black women died at a rate four times higher than white women. Dr. Jaleen Sims, an OB-GYN at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said 133, or 80%, of those deaths were preventable, “meaning these ladies should still be living.” As for pregnancy-related deaths, the Mississippi Maternal Mortality Review Committee reported 40 deaths from 2017 to 2019 and deemed 35, or 87.5%, of them as preventable.

“There still are biases in care across the country and the state of Mississippi,” Sims said at the maternal health conference on Sept. 20.

Mississippi had 57 potential maternal deaths in 2023 at a rate of 165.5 per 100,000 live births, the MSDH Office of Vital Records and Public Health Statistics reports. Potential maternal deaths means deaths during pregnancy or the year after pregnancy. Early data from 2024 shows 18 maternal deaths so far. The MMRC’s data shows that 61% of mental-health related maternal deaths occurred 43 to 365 days after birth.

Mississippi’s pregnancy-related mortality rate from 2016 to 2020 was 35.2 per 100,000 live births.

Edney noted that infant and maternal health cannot be separated because the infant’s health is “tightly correlated” with the mother’s health. The MMRC’s data shows that 15% of Mississippi babies are born premature and 12.3% of babies have a low birth weight. Black babies have the highest rates of preterm births at 17.7%, the MMRC reports. Its data says Mississippi’s infant mortality rate is 9.4 per 1,000 live births. Mississippi has the highest cesarean section rate at 38.5%, while the overall U.S. rate is 32.4%, the MMRC reports.

The majority-Black Mississippi Delta has the highest maternal mortality rate in the state at 339.5 deaths per 100,000 live births, provisional data from MSDH shows. Central Mississippi’s rate was 207.2 deaths per 100,000 births, North Mississippi’s was 151.5 per 100,000 births and South Mississippi’s was 99.1 per 100,000 births. The national average for 2022, the most recent year of the CDC’s data collection, was 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births.

“Working on health can solve a lot of problems regarding poverty in Mississippi. There is no doubt of the link between poverty and health,” Edney said.

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly exacerbated infant and maternal deaths, but the COVID-19 vaccine helped save thousands of lives, the state health officer said. He said he was anxiously awaiting data from 2022, the first “post-pandemic” year, to see if the death rate lowered. The data from 2022 will also be the first year that includes the period after the June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which allowed a near-total abortion ban to take effect in the state.

“Over the past 10 years, the economy of Mississippi has been negatively impacted by over $20 billion just for maternal and infant death,” Edney said, noting that Mississippi spends about $2.55 billion annually on infant and maternal mortality.

Mississippi has the highest overall death outcomes in the country among all groups. Edney said that Mississippi had at least 218,000 more deaths from all causes and among all groups than the national average from 1950 to 2022.

Solving Mississippi’s Infant and Maternal Health Care Crisis

Mississippi does not have to have to be the unhealthiest in the nation, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney said during the maternal health conference, adding that “we’re choosing to be in this position.”

“As community partners, as state agencies, as elected officials, we’re making choices that are leaving us where we are. I’ve been preaching for two years that if we continue on with the same old same old, then no results will come,” he said.

Enacting the Mississippi Maternal Mortality Review Committee’s recommendations, including expanding Medicaid, is the best way Mississippi can improve its health outcomes, Edney said. He noted that MSDH implements as many of its recommendations as possible each year, but said elected officials continuously turn a blind eye to MMRC’s suggestions.

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers were unsuccessful in their efforts to expand Medicaid in the 2024 legislative session. Mississippi Maternal Mortality Review Committee Chair Dr. Michelle Owens said elected officials need to pass the measure this year to improve the state’s health outcomes. Edney noted that maternal death is linked to restricted access to health care.

“Part of the problem with maternal death is women don’t know their health status when they get pregnant,” he said.

MMRC recommended that Mississippi’s health-care system use telehealth and other technological innovations to make health care more accessible for all Mississippians. MMRC Chair Dr. Michelle Owens said the health-care system should “meet people where they are” instead of assuming that people needing health care will come to the clinic or hospital on their own.

Communication between care providers needs to improve so that patients are not getting conflicting information, she said. She encouraged educating women and community members about the early warning signs of a dangerous pregnancy so women can seek treatment as soon as possible.

Mississippi jobs should guarantee paid maternal leave so moms are not working when they should be recovering from childbirth, Owens said, adding that most women returned to work three weeks after giving birth regardless of their birthing experience.

“Diapers, wipes and babies are expensive. You shouldn’t have to choose between living and being healthy,” she said.

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