Nearly half of US hospitals no longer deliver babies, new report finds

A University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center report published September 10 found that nearly half of all hospitals in the United States no longer offer obstetric services, after more than 700 hospitals closed their maternity wards between 2010 and 2024.

More than 57% of rural hospitals lacked a birthing ward in 2024, according to the report, cited by Healthcare Dive. Closures in 2023 and 2024 were concentrated in Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Wisconsin. The number of rural states where at least half of hospitals have closed their obstetric wards rose from 12 to 31 over the period the report covers, while the number of urban states hitting that same threshold rose from two to 15.

The report estimated that nearly 36,000 births in 2024 took place at hospitals that would go on to close their maternity services within the following year, accounting for 1.4% of rural births and 0.9% of urban births that year, Healthcare Dive reported.

Medicaid finances about 41% of all births in the United States, according to the report. New Medicaid work requirements taking effect in January are expected to cause millions of people to lose coverage, which the report’s authors said would eliminate predictable reimbursements that hospitals currently rely on and could push more facilities to cut obstetric services. The Commonwealth Fund puts the U.S. maternal mortality rate at 22 deaths per 100,000 live births, the highest among developed nations, Healthcare Dive reported.

A separate analysis from KFF, a health policy research organization, found that 238 rural hospitals closed their obstetric units between 2010 and 2022 while only 26 opened new ones, according to KUNC. By 2023, nearly half of rural counties had no hospital obstetric services at all.

The KFF analysis found that the median drive time to reach a hospital offering maternity care is 43 minutes for rural Medicaid patients, compared with 13 minutes for urban Medicaid patients. In 14 states, the closure of the nearest rural hospital’s obstetric unit would force many Medicaid patients onto drives of an hour or longer, KUNC reported. Alaska, Nevada and North Dakota would see the longest resulting drive times, and 11 additional states, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming, would also cross the one-hour median threshold.

“There are likely going to be rural hospitals that close their obstetric units or have to close the entire hospital, and so people will have greater distances to travel to safely deliver a baby,” KFF associate director Brittni Frederiksen told KUNC.

A separate 2026 report from March of Dimes found that one in three U.S. counties qualifies as a maternity care desert, home to 5.8 million women and 358,000 infants. The report counted at least 96 labor and delivery unit closures across 35 states between 2024 and early 2026, and found that in nearly 60% of the affected counties, the facility that closed had been the only place to give birth locally. Average travel time to maternity care rose by 25 minutes in the communities affected by those closures, the report found.

“Where you live should not determine whether you can access maternity care,” the March of Dimes report states. “Yet millions of families across the U.S. live in communities without enough obstetric clinicians, birthing facilities, or affordable options for care.”