Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. (To contribute, click here.) This commentary is included among a collection of articles that were submitted in response to, or are otherwise applicable to, Star Tribune Opinion's June 4 call for submissions on the question: "Where does Minnesota go from here?" Read the full collection of responses here.
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Let's make Minnesota the best place to have a baby. What outcome is possibly more important than making pregnancy, labor and delivery and those early months with a baby exceptionally good?
I confess to a special interest having given birth to three babies in Minnesota and now awaiting the birth in Minnesota of two grandchildren in the coming months.
Making Minnesota the best place to have a baby is a great goal because it is affects us all and the impact is profound. It is also a great goal because we can only achieve it by taking substantial and powerful actions in how we live together, our health care system and our culture.
This goal requires us to improve the lives of women and girls before their pregnancy, provide better services during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and support women, infants and their family in the months after delivery — sometimes called "the fourth trimester." There is no single action to get this done and that's why this is such a powerful goal for our state. The actions required to make Minnesota the best state to have a baby makes us better in many other ways just like a healthy baby and mother benefit a family in so many ways.
We have a lot to build on in Minnesota. Our maternal and infant mortality rate is much better than the national average. Our health care delivery system ranks better. This year, the Legislature passed, and the governor signed, laws to protect pregnant Minnesotans and new parents. In 2021, Minnesota provided national leadership by enacting a law to allow women in prison to stay with their infant for the first year. Our Medical Assistance program expanded to cover one year of postpartum coverage. Public and corporate insurance programs cover doula services for emotional and social support.
Yet to achieve this goal, we have a lot more to do to. Looking more deeply at our results, we don't do so well. Our state overall rankings obscure some big problems. Black, brown, Hispanic and Indigenous Minnesotans experience worse birth outcomes than the national average. Minnesotans in our most rural areas face long drives to a hospital. Obstetricians, who handle more complex births, are in short supply in small towns and isolated rural areas and more women experience preterm births in areas without local hospital birth services, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
To achieve this goal, our first focus is on the inequities that plague our state. Equity in access to good jobs, public schools, health care and nutrition is foundational to good birth outcomes. When we make headway on equity, we make Minnesota a better state in which to give birth. In this, the leaders of the Black Maternal Health Caucus provide important leadership at the Capitol.
We also need to ensure that our health care delivery system is integrated statewide and provides reliable access for the nearly 30% of Minnesota's expectant parents who rely on the Medicaid program to insure them during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the postpartum period. Ensuring that access to high-quality, affordable, and comprehensive reproductive health care is available to all Minnesotans, wherever they live, is an essential part of this vision.
Finally, we need to listen to women. Too many pregnant women and mothers are ignored when they share their symptoms. Even famous new mothers, like Serena Williams, have nearly died after giving birth because their concerns were discounted. Listening to women's experience, taking her concerns seriously, and exploring the underlying causes must be highly valued and vital skills for doctors, midwives, nurses and other health care professionals.
If we can achieve this goal across the state and for all Minnesotans, not just in a statewide average, this result would bring fresh prosperity in educational achievement and economic advancement making Minnesota a magnet for talent across the country. And most wonderfully, achieving this goal would bring new happiness to Minnesota families.
Lois Quam, of St. Paul, is CEO of Pathfinder International.
