maternal health

Between 1999 and 2019, the increase in Indigenous pregnant women dying in Kansas was among the worst in the country. Kansas women are training more doulas to help expecting Native moms through pregnancy and birth.

The planned closure follows the shutdown of Providence Medical Service’s labor and delivery program, and will expand the area of the Kansas City metro without maternal care services.

A Jackson County Circuit Court judge blocked enforcement last week of nearly all Missouri laws that restrict abortion, ruling the 2024 passage of Amendment 3 enshrined the right to an abortion in the state constitution. Missouri has already started and stopped abortion services several times this year as legal battles continue.

Missouri's Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review Board found that 350 women died while pregnant or up to a year postpartum between 2018 and 2022. The report found that 80% of those deaths were preventable.

Through a new partnership with Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center, a rural maternal health clinic will bring doula services to Kansas City’s Westside.

The legislation, which state Rep. Jim Murphy called "a pro-life bill that everybody agrees with," also expands tax credits for maternity homes and diaper banks and creates a "Zero-Cost Adoption Fund."

In-clinic abortion care has returned to Columbia after a long hiatus. KBIA’s Rebecca Smith takes us on a tour behind the scenes of central Missouri's Planned Parenthood health clinic.

Natural birth centers that aren’t affiliated with hospitals are becoming more popular, but patients across the Kansas City area are left with few options after a local center closed. Plus: Kernza is a relatively new grain with a budding future as a sustainable crop, but it's struggling to find a market.

Birthing centers, which offer natural, low-intervention births to low-risk moms, are becoming more and more popular. But regardless of demand, they’re struggling to stay open.

The rule, which will last for six months, was a response to "an immediate danger to the public health, safety or welfare of pregnant women in Missouri," according to the state Department of Social Services. Missouri has some of the worst maternal mortality rates in the U.S.

Many of the people in Kansas who are homeless do have an income, but housing is simply too expensive to afford a place to live. Plus: Missouri law doesn't clearly IVF, so what's the risk of the procedure being outlawed?

For every 100,000 births in Missouri between 2017 and 2021, more than 32 people died because of pregnancy-related complications — an average of 70 deaths annually.