Tennessee plagued by maternity-care deserts
Certified nurse midwife Kate Fouquier checks on a patient who is 22 weeks pregnant at a Regional One Health primary care facility in Memphis. Fouquier has practiced midwifery for more than 25 years. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
More than a third of Tennessee counties are maternity-care deserts, meaning there are no hospitals providing obstetric care, no birth centers, no OB-GYNs and no certified nurse midwives, putting pregnant women in a possibly risky situation.
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Maternity UTHSC College of Nursing Sarah Rhoads Kate Fouquier Planned Parenthood Subscriber OnlyWe’re in the final countdown of 2025. ⌛🪩🎉
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Aisling Mäki
Aisling Mäki covers health care, banking and finance, technology and professions. After launching her career in news two decades ago, she worked in public relations for almost a decade before returning to journalism in 2022.
As a health care reporter, she’s collaborated with The Carter Center, earned awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and won a 2024 Tennessee Press Association first-place prize for her series on discrepancies in Shelby County life expectancy by ZIP code.
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