March of Dimes - Nowhere to Go: Maternity Care Deserts Across the U.S. (2026)

Tier 1: Established: peer-reviewed research or government health authority
Publisher: March of Dimes (PeriStats) · Published: August 11, 2026 · Accessed: August 18, 2026

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Claims this source supports

• March of Dimes 'Nowhere to Go: Maternity Care Deserts Across the U.S.' (2026 report, released Aug 11 2026) found 34.6% of U.S. counties - more than one in three - are maternity care deserts, with more than 5.8 million women having limited options for pregnancy and childbirth care.
• Nearly 58% of rural counties lack obstetric clinicians, and more than half of all U.S. counties lack a hospital with labor and delivery services.
• Since January 2024 there have been at least 96 labor and delivery unit closures, nearly 60% of which eliminated the county's only birthing facility.
• This is a maternity-care measure, not a menopause statistic - used in CPC editorial as the best available county-level map of where women's-health providers are, with the collapse of OB infrastructure as the canary for menopause-care access in rural counties.