Mississippi Today

Mississippi mothers are now guaranteed coverage for a year after giving birth. But they may not get the prenatal care they need.

Published

2 years ago

May 3, 2023

Mississippi cleared a big hurdle after lawmakers extended postpartum Medicaid coverage this session, guaranteeing low-income women a year of health care coverage after having a baby.

Now experts say that Mississippi needs to turn its attention to what happens before these women give birth. Early prenatal care is vital to healthy moms, babies and pregnancies, but because of the state Division of Medicaid’s policies, it’s unknown if the majority of pregnant Mississippians are getting that care.

The division, which funds more than two-thirds of births in Mississippi, doesn’t monitor when people go to their first prenatal visit. And the absence of presumptive eligibility in Mississippi creates major delays for people seeking prenatal care.

Pregnancy presumptive eligibility allows people to receive care when they’re pregnant, even if they’re not on Medicaid. It’s presumed that they qualify, so their providers enroll them and start billing Medicaid, which reimburses providers immediately.

That means fewer delays when it comes to receiving care. They’re able to go to doctor’s offices and get the care they need quickly, without having to pay out of pocket.

The agency is hoping to eventually track when recipients go to prenatal visits, but Communications Officer Matt Westerfield could not provide a timeline for when that data might be available. And Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder has said he won’t take steps to make it easier for expecting mothers to get on Medicaid without legislative action.

Mississippi is one of the most dangerous states in the country to give birth in, and early intervention is key to successful pregnancies, according to Dr. Anita Henderson, former president of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The state’s dismal maternal mortality rate is getting worse, especially for Black people, and Mississippi has the highest infant mortality, preterm birth and low birthweight rates in the nation.

But as rural health care collapses and hospital closures loom, it’s getting harder to access health care for expecting Mississippians. Neonatal ICUs and labor and delivery units are closing, and county health departments stopped enrolling new maternity patients in 2016.

It’s a dangerous mix following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn abortion rights, which means the state is expecting thousands more pregnancies.

Care during the first trimester is crucial to a healthy pregnancy and healthy babies, especially for people with conditions that need to be managed like high blood pressure or diabetes.

“I think given the level of health concerns in our population that exists before pregnancy, we know too many people are going to start prenatal care with medical conditions that make that pregnancy high risk,” said Dr. Charlene Collier, an OB-GYN based in Mississippi. “The consequences are always snowballing when a person enters pregnancy with an untreated or complicated medical history.”

When people who are expecting can’t make it to a prenatal visit in a timely manner, the consequences can be deadly — and, often, preventable.

Collier cited the prevalence of congenital syphilis in Mississippi, which is at an all time high, to stress the importance of early care. She said there’s a limited time frame to prevent complications from syphilis.

Last month, the state health department implemented an emergency order requiring doctors to test pregnant patients for syphilis. Previously, Mississippi was one of six states in the country not to require the testing.

“Now that we’re seeing a rise in congenital syphilis, it’s even more important that people are in prenatal care, getting their blood work done and getting treatment so that infections like syphilis, which is easily treatable with penicillin, can be identified and treated early,” she said. “Any delays increase the chance of a really detrimental infection in a pregnancy.”

Another barrier to timely prenatal care is that it’s complicated to get pregnancy Medicaid coverage.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mississippi is one of 21 states as of January 2020 that doesn’t offer presumptive eligibility for pregnant people, which has significant benefits.

According to a study commissioned with the University of Mississippi Center for Population Studies by the Center for Mississippi Health Policy, preterm births are less likely for low-income people when they live in a state with presumptive eligibility and expanded Medicaid.

Mississippi is one of only three states in the country that has neither expanded Medicaid nor provides pregnancy presumptive eligibility.

And it takes the Mississippi Division of Medicaid about 24 days to approve pregnancy applications, Westerfield said in November. Until then, uninsured people who are expecting must foot the bills themselves, if a doctor sees them at all.

It’s a tedious process that even top officials in Mississippi are confused by.

At a recent press conference about Mississippi’s commitment to its “culture of life” following the overturning of abortion rights, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said that the state has presumptive eligibility. But he was referring to hospital presumptive eligibility, which allows hospitals to assume patients’ Medicaid eligibility to provide care. It is not the same thing as presumptive eligibility for pregnant people, which allows them to get care at doctor’s offices just as they would if they were insured.

Reeves’ spokesperson Shelby Wilcher responded that pregnant women in Mississippi have presumptive eligibility at hospitals. After Mississippi Today clarified hospital presumptive eligibility was not the same thing as presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, Wilcher suggested further questions be directed to the Division of Medicaid.

She did not respond to a question asking if the governor would support establishing presumptive eligibility for pregnant women.

“Presumptive eligibility is, intentionally, a very loosely used umbrella term,” said John Dillon Harris, a health care systems and policy consultant at the Center for Mississippi Health Policy. “The question is who is presumed eligible and for what?”

At the last Medical Care Advisory Committee Meeting on Feb 24, Snyder said that the Division of Medicaid wouldn’t utilize pregnancy presumptive eligibility unless directed to by the Legislature.

Westerfield said in an email that position is to prevent the DOM from paying “providers for services for women who subsequently would not qualify for Medicaid.”

Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, introduced a bill this past session to establish presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, but it died after being referred to the Medicaid committee, which met just once last legislative session and only advanced two bills out of committee.

Collier said she recently had a patient who applied for Medicaid but hadn’t yet been approved. The patient delayed getting ultrasounds and other labs out of fear of running up a higher bill even though all her bills would be back-paid once she got on Medicaid.

“I do think the lack of insurance preceding pregnancy is a major barrier to initiating early prenatal care, particularly getting bloodwork done in a timely manner,” Collier said.

It’s a paradox — a confirmatory pregnancy test is required to qualify for Medicaid, but many doctor’s offices don’t provide care to people who are uninsured.

County health departments still offer these confirmatory tests for free, said Liz Sharlot, communications director at the Mississippi Department of Health.

“In fact, that is the most common reason women come in for the pregnancy tests is to confirm that pregnancy test and receive the confirmation letter to bring to the Regional Medicaid Offices in order to apply for Medicaid benefits during pregnancy,” she said.

Clinics that specifically serve uninsured and underserved populations such as the Hinds Comprehensive Health Center, where Dr. Jaleen Sims works as an OB-GYN, also provide these confirmatory pregnancy tests at low cost.

It’s not clear how many people are aware these services are offered at low or no cost at places other than primary care doctor’s offices. And if they are aware, transportation can be another issue.

“The patients who live in these areas need a ride or they have to take off work for a full day to drive to Jackson or their closest areas, spend time in the waiting room, have their visit and then drive back,” she said. “By the time you finish with that you’ve missed … a full day of work for the most part.”

According to a report from the March of Dimes, more than half the counties in Mississippi are considered maternity care deserts, with no OB-GYNs, certified midwives or hospitals providing obstetric care.

It also continues to be a challenge to recruit doctors, especially OB-GYNs, to Mississippi and keep them here. Of the five people who graduated from UMMC’s OB-GYN program in 2019, Sims was the only one to stay in Mississippi.

For the doctors who stay, their patient waitlists are long.

One of the nurses Sims works with had to use her health care connections to get into a doctor’s office. She had just missed her period and called to schedule an appointment, only to be told she had to wait four months.

“I’ll never judge a person again on coming late to prenatal care,” Sims said the nurse told her.

It’s hard work being pregnant in Mississippi, Sims said.

“It’s almost like you have this feeling of being defeated,” she said. “It’s like, ‘I’m trying everything that I can to take care of me and to take care of my baby. But I have all these barriers and hoops that I have to jump through just to get to that point.’”

Reporter Isabelle Taft contributed to this story.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Up Next

Tate Reeves warns Mississippians ‘they’ are out to get them as campaign gets rolling

Don't Miss

Brandon Presley campaign reports $1.3 million raised since January

Mississippi Today

Even in red America, clean energy is booming. But now, huge renewable projects are dead.

Published

16 hours ago

May 10, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-05-10 06:00:00

by Ames Alexander, Floodlight, Mississippi Today
May 10, 2025

This story was originally published by Floodlight.

Renewable energy in the United States has surged to unprecedented levels, with the combined power generated by solar, wind and geothermal more than tripling over the past decade, according to a new report by a network of state environmental groups.

The growth has slashed harmful greenhouse gas emissions, made the nation’s energy system more resilient and prevented thousands of premature deaths from power plant pollution, according to the report by Environment America.

But this progress faces increasing resistance as President Donald Trump in his first 15 weeks in office has begun to dismantle federal policies and spending aimed at slowing climate change.

It’s all happening at a time of heightened concern among environmentalists. Despite an international accord to lower greenhouse gas emissions, the atmosphere now contains record levels of heat-trapping gasses. All 50 states have warmed since the first Earth Day in 1970, according to a new analysis by Climate Central, an independent nonprofit group that researches and disseminates information about climate change and its effects.

Among the highlights of the Environment America report:

The amount of solar energy produced in 2024 — enough to power 28 million homes — was nearly eight times higher than a decade earlier. Solar power production increased 27% from 2023 to 2024.

Wind produced even more energy — enough to power 42 million homes in 2024. The amount of power from wind has more than doubled over the past decade.

Wind, solar and geothermal energy accounted for 19% of all retail sales of electricity last year, according to the federal data used to produce the report.

The amount of utility-scale battery storage in the United States grew 63% from 2023 to 2024 — and a more than 80-fold increase over the past decade.

Nearly 3.3 million electric vehicles were on U.S. roads at the end of 2023 – a 25-fold increase from 2014. The number of electric vehicle charging ports, meanwhile, grew to more than 218,000 at the end of 2024 – six times more than 2015 and a 24% increase from just the year before.

More than 1.5 million plug-in electric vehicles were sold in 2024, an increase of more than 7% over the previous year, according to Argonne National Laboratory. Nearly 300,000 new electric vehicles were sold in the United States during the first quarter of 2025 — an 11% increase over the same period last year, Kelley Blue Book data shows.

“The growth of these clean energy technologies is now clearly benefiting people in all 50 states, and they’re really providing the building blocks of a clean energy system free from dirty and inefficient fuels,” said Johanna Neumann, senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy, which is led by Environment America. “And the more that we can accelerate the progress that we’ve seen, the better it’ll be for our health and for our environment.”

Most of the states that have seen the biggest percentage increases in wind, solar and geothermal energy over the past decade are in the South — and most are Republican states, according to a Floodlight analysis of the federal data used in the Environment America report.

Some of those states, including Mississippi and Alabama, still rank low in the total amount of renewable energy produced. But other right-leaning Southern states, including Florida and North Carolina, now rank above most others in terms of the total renewable energy generated.

Farmland in Dundee, Miss., is overlooked by rotating wind turbines on Oct. 14, 2024.

Billions in clean-energy projects canceled

For those concerned about climate change, however, a new analysis points to a more worrisome sign: Almost $8 billion in investments — including 16 large-scale factories and other projects — were canceled, closed or downsized in the first three months of 2025, according to the report by E2, a nonpartisan group of business leaders who advocate for sound environmental policies.

Likely contributing to the cancellations: market uncertainty and the debate in Congress over repealing tax credits and other incentives for clean energy projects. The $7.9 billion in investments withdrawn this year are more than three times the amount canceled over the previous two years, the E2 report notes.

“Clean energy companies still want to invest in America, but uncertainty over Trump administration policies and the future of critical clean energy tax credits are taking a clear toll,” E2 spokesman Michael Timberlake said in a statement.

The Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s massive climate law, extended renewable energy tax credits until at least 2032. Whether the Republican-controlled Congress will eliminate those tax credits is unclear.

“I think that market certainty has been stripped away for many of these technologies right now, and they’re feeling uneasy,” Neumann said. “And so it’s not surprising to me that we’re seeing a retraction in investment.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Even in red America, clean energy is booming. But now, huge renewable projects are dead. appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article presents a factual overview of the recent developments in renewable energy, particularly the increasing resistance and setbacks in clean energy projects in the United States. While the article details the progress in renewable energy and highlights concerns about the future of such projects under the current administration, it frames the issue within the broader context of environmental and policy debates. The use of terms such as “climate change,” “dismantling federal policies,” and “uncertainty over Trump administration policies” leans toward a more critical stance on current Republican policies, giving it a Center-Left tilt. It focuses on the negative consequences of policy changes rather than offering a balanced perspective of the differing political views on the matter. However, the article does not overtly push a particular political agenda, keeping the analysis grounded in facts. The presentation of both positive growth in renewable energy and the resulting challenges contributes to a generally neutral reporting style, albeit with a slight emphasis on environmental concerns that align with Center-Left ideologies.

Mississippi Today

Federal court approves Mississippi legislative redistricting. Special elections will proceed

Published

1 day ago

May 9, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @GeoffPender – 2025-05-09 11:49:00

by Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today
May 9, 2025

A panel of three federal judges has approved a revised legislative redistricting plan from the Mississippi Election Commission, which will allow special elections to move forward this year for 15 legislative seats.

The court in April had ordered state officials to develop yet another legislative map to ensure Black voters in the DeSoto County area have a fair opportunity to elect candidates to the state Senate.

The panel, comprised of U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan, U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden and U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick, previously ruled that when lawmakers redrew their districts in 2022 to account for population shifts, they violated federal civil rights law because the maps diluted Black voting power.

To remedy the violation, the court allowed the Legislature to propose a new House map redrawing House districts in the Chickasaw County area and a new Senate map redrawing districts in the DeSoto County and Hattiesburg areas.

Earlier this year, during the 2025 session, the Legislature attempted to comply with the order and tweaked those districts. However, the plaintiffs still objected to parts of the Legislature’s plan.

The plaintiffs, the state chapter of the NAACP and Black voters from around the state, did not object to the Hattiesburg portion of the Senate plan. But they argued the Chickasaw County portion of the House plan and the DeSoto County portion of the Senate plan did not create a realistic opportunity for Black voters in those areas to elect their preferred candidates.

The judges accepted the Chickasaw County redistricting portion. Still, they objected to the DeSoto County part because the Legislature’s proposed DeSoto County solution “yokes high-turnout white communities in the Hernando area of DeSoto County to several poorer, predominantly Black towns in the Mississippi Delta,” which would make it hard for Black voters to overcome white voting blocs.

The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered state officials to, again, craft a new Senate map for the area in the suburbs of Memphis. The panel has held that none of the state’s prior maps gave Black voters a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice.

The court in its latest ruling set deadlines and a schedule for special elections for Mississippi legislative seats impacted by the new maps.

The deadline to publicize and share the maps with local election officials is May 12. Candidate qualification to run will run from June 2-9 and the slate of candidates will be submitted by June 13. Absentee voting for the Aug. 5 primaries will begin June 21.

Absentee voting for general elections will begin Sept. 20 and general elections will be Nov. 4.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Federal court approves Mississippi legislative redistricting. Special elections will proceed appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article maintains a factual and neutral tone, focusing primarily on the legal proceedings and the federal court’s decision regarding Mississippi’s legislative redistricting. While it highlights the concerns raised by plaintiffs (the NAACP and Black voters) regarding the adequacy of the proposed maps, the article does not offer an ideological stance or overtly favor any side. It provides balanced reporting on both the court’s ruling and the objections of the plaintiffs without promoting a specific political viewpoint. The use of straightforward legal and procedural language helps ensure that the report adheres to neutral, factual reporting.

Mississippi Today

Blue Cross moms face out of pocket costs for breastfeeding help

Published

2 days ago

May 9, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-05-09 08:42:00

by Sophia Paffenroth, Mississippi Today
May 9, 2025

Mississippi moms will no longer be able to use Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi insurance to cover lactation services after they leave the hospital.

The Lactation Network, a third-party biller that allows Mississippians with certain insurance to see non-physician lactation consultants, will no longer accept Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi patients. The network was previously subsidizing the unpaid portion of the claim for these moms’ visits, but it said that it can no longer afford to do so.

The Lactation Network did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today by the time the story published.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi is the state’s largest private insurer. Lactation consultants and breastfeeding advocates worry the reduced coverage will worsen Mississippi’s breastfeeding rate – already one of the lowest in the country. The loss in coverage could have profound impacts on the health of mothers and children, experts say.

“It’s such a complex puzzle of how to improve maternal and infant outcomes, but we know that breastfeeding is an integral, foundational part of that,” said Dr. Christina Glick, a retired neonatologist and lactation consultant in the Jackson area. “ … Lack of reimbursement will interfere with delivery of care, which will reduce breastfeeding rates.”

Dr. Christina Glick, director of Mississippi Lactation Services, right, visits with Olivia Harrell as she breastfeeds one of her newborn twins at Glick’s breastfeeding clinic in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023.

Breastfeeding has been proven to lower the incidence of diseases, infections and depression in both mother and baby. But it’s not always straightforward, and the list of potential challenges is not short: oversupply, undersupply, allergies and sensitivities, problems with pumping upon return to work, milk blisters and a host of other issues. Ninety-two percent of new mothers report having trouble breastfeeding three days postpartum and needing support.

Shay Bequette, a 25-year-old from Hattiesburg with Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, overcame multiple hurdles to breastfeed her baby, born in January.

“I was struggling,” Bequette said. “I’m the first in my family to breastfeed. And my son was really small … I knew something was wrong intuitively, but I just couldn’t understand because I was producing (milk), but he was constantly crying. I was breastfeeding for an hour and a half on each side and he was still crying like he was in pain.”

Emotions and stakes are high for mothers learning to breastfeed. Moms who struggle to breastfeed often report feeling a sense of failure, while also facing intense pressure to make sure their baby is gaining adequate weight.

Though she didn’t want to, Bequette considered switching to formula – and says she would have if she wasn’t able to access affordable lactation support.

“I was losing my marbles, I was crying, I was frustrated,” Bequette said. “My whole family was like, ‘you know, you’re just going to have to switch to formula, obviously it’s not working.’”

Shay Bequette holds her infant son outside her home in Hattiesburg on Thursday, May 8, 2025.

Instead, Bequette found Maranda Nybo, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) based in Pass Christian who expanded her practice to include a once-weekly trip to Hattiesburg. Bequette credits all of her current breastfeeding success to Nybo.

“She saved my sanity, and she saved his life,” said Bequette.

Now, Bequette will have to discontinue her care – and Nybo worries for the future of her practice, where she estimates between 80 and 90% of her clients use Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance.

“Sunday, Monday and (Tuesday) I’ve had 12 moms schedule appointments with me … every single one of them have been denied as of today,” Nybo told Mississippi Today. “All of them, except one, have canceled their appointments with me.”

The Lactation Network announced April 30 that working with certain insurance companies is no longer affordable.

“Historically, nearly 1 in 4 out-of-network visits that TLN covers go unpaid by health plans,” read an April 30 email from TLN to providers. “For a long time, we’ve subsidized the cost of care, hoping these plans would come around and reimburse us for this vital care. But that’s not sustainable — we can’t continue absorbing the costs that these plans should be covering.”

A spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield Mississippi told Mississippi Today the company wasn’t aware of the changes and has no formal agreement with TLN.

“Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi Members continue to have access to lactation consultation services when they use a Network Provider,” a Blue Cross spokesperson said.

The only in-network lactation consultants currently covered by Blue Cross are physicians, who do not generally operate outpatient clinics focused solely on breastfeeding care.

While new mothers usually get some form of support while they’re still in the hospital, most breastfeeding problems don’t develop until well after they leave, explained Erin Mattingly, a Jackson-based IBCLC.

“I hear all the time that parents think breastfeeding is going fairly well in the hospital and then they get home and things fall apart,” she said. “And a lot of that is because during their time in the hospital, for the vast majority of mothers, their mature milk supply has not even arrived yet. So, it’s after the mature milk comes in that they start to have issues.”

After parents leave the hospital, the next appointment is typically scheduled two weeks later with a pediatrician. The majority of mothers who are struggling to breastfeed will give up if they don’t get help in that interim period, Mattingly said.

Even if moms continue breastfeeding for those two weeks, they don’t always get comprehensive lactation support during the pediatric visit.

Bequette says when she broached the subject with her obstetrician and her pediatrician, each of them referred her to the other for guidance. That’s not unusual, according to Mattingly.

“Doctors are fantastic at what they do, but they don’t have the same lactation training that lactation consultants have,” Mattingly said. “And in addition to that, they don’t have the time. If they have 10, 15 minutes with a patient, that’s not enough time to observe a feeding, problem solve what could be going on, and create a strategy going forward.”

An average lactation session with Mattingly or Nybo runs between 60 and 90 minutes and costs between $100 and $125 without insurance.

That may be an affordable out-of-pocket cost to some, but it will put support out of reach for many moms who are already at a disadvantage for breastfeeding.

“As a private practice, for me this is devastating,” Nybo said. “But it’s also really devastating for the moms.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Blue Cross moms face out of pocket costs for breastfeeding help appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article presents a factual account of changes to insurance coverage for lactation services, focusing on the impact on mothers in Mississippi. It emphasizes the concerns of healthcare professionals and breastfeeding advocates, reflecting a concern for public health and access to necessary services. The use of expert opinions and emotional testimonials from affected individuals conveys a sympathetic view toward those negatively affected by the insurance policy change. While it presents various perspectives, the overall tone and framing lean toward highlighting the societal harm caused by the policy shift, particularly in a state with already low breastfeeding rates.