Mississippi Today
Advocates say licensed midwives could help Mississippi’s maternity care desert. Bills appear dead
Advocates say licensed midwives could help Mississippi’s maternity care desert. Bills appear dead
Advocates say pending legislation on midwifery could help alleviate Mississippi’s lack of maternity health care and protect mothers and babies from those practicing without proper training.
But Senate Bill 2793 and House Bill 1081 are likely going to die without a vote in committee this session, as legislative leaders say they need more time to study the issue.
More than half of Mississippi’s 82 counties are considered “maternity care deserts,” with no hospitals providing obstetric care and no OB-GYNs. Advocates say trained midwives could help this shortage of care for low-risk pregnancies, but say the state should license and regulate them.
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a ban on abortions in Mississippi, advocates say trained midwives could help with the expected increase of thousands of deliveries a year for a health care system that is already woefully inadequate.
Mississippi is one of 14 states that does not regulate or license direct-entry midwives, those who practice without first becoming a nurse. Certified nurse midwives in the state are licensed as advanced practice registered nurses. There are only 26 certified nurse midwives in Mississippi, and only a few deliver babies, because only three hospitals allow them to.
Mississippi prevents free-standing, midwife-led clinics for low-risk births and prohibits certified nurse midwives from performing in-home births – both of which are popular in other states and in Europe. More mothers want personalized care at home or in a small clinic as opposed to giving birth in a larger hospital, and want natural birth instead of induced labor or non-necessary C-section surgeries for delivery that have become more and more common in hospitals.
But Mississippi’s lack of licensure or regulation also results in untrained or poorly trained people claiming to be midwives providing substandard – or dangerous – care to mothers and newborns at home.
“Anybody can say, ‘I’m a midwife,’ and nobody can stop them,” said Getty Israel, founder of Sisters in Birth, a nonprofit that pairs community health workers with low-income women, primarily Medicaid beneficiaries, to provide support during and after their pregnancies. Israel hopes to open Mississippi’s first birth center. Such centers in other states serve women with low-risk pregnancies, and provide compromise between hospital births and home births.
READ MORE: Bills to watch in the 2023 Mississippi legislative session
Israel said she supports midwifery and wants to see it become a viable alternative in Mississippi, but believes they should be state regulated and licensed.
Erin Raftery is with Better Birth Mississippi, a group advocating for the midwifery legislation. The group says, “Community-based midwifery is a key solution to the challenges faced by the maternity care system in Mississippi.” Trained midwives could help with health care shortages caused by closure of rural hospitals and help save Medicaid money by “minimizing the use of costly, ineffective interventions.”
“The goal of these bills is accountability,” Raftery said. “… This would provide protection for patients, and for midwives. This would also hopefully open the door for insurance coverage for midwife services, and help with the maternity desert.”
Raftery said her group knows of at least one infant death in Mississippi overseen by an unlicensed midwife, and that a similar instance a decade or so ago had also prompted proposed legislation. Raftery said licensure would help protect patients from the “select few” midwives practicing without training.
Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, authored the Senate midwife bill.
“I think we need to look at all our opportunities for health care in Mississippi,” Blackwell said. “We are last, and we won’t change. We need to look at all the other states that are changing the way they do things.”
Both Blackwell’s bill and a mirror one authored by Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, would create a state board of licensed midwifery.
“There are community midwives already practicing in this state, and this would help legitimize them, provide some oversight, and I think our primary responsibility is to make sure those that are practicing are doing so with some standard of care and level of experience,” McLean said. “Safety for moms and babies is the first priority. But I think there’s also an issue of allowing for reimbursement for Medicaid and private insurance. They do require some sort of certification or licensure before they would reimburse for these services.
“Rural areas are closing maternity wards, and if this is an option that can help for low-risk births, then we need to explore that.”
But many physicians and hospital groups say child delivery should be overseen by trained physicians in hospital settings. Beyond these arguments, there has been a push by conservative groups and GOP lawmakers to reduce government agencies, boards and regulations, not create new licensing and a new regulatory board.
Nurse practitioners have also struggled for more autonomy and expanded scope of practice in Mississippi – with limited legislative success – saying they, too, could help with the state’s shortage of doctors and health services.
Israel said doctors and hospitals treat child birth as a “cash cow,” and that their lobbyists and influence at the Capitol prevent “progressive, evidence-based health care.”
The House and Senate bills are now in each chamber’s public health committee, facing a deadline for committee passage next week. That passage this year, or even a vote in committee, appeared unlikely days before the deadline.
House Public Health Chairman Sam Mims, R-McComb, asked Wednesday about the midwifery bill pending in his committee, said he was unaware of it.
“I’ll go look at it,” Mims said. “I will read it. I will go look at it. Thank you, though.”
Raftery said her group had met with Mims and his committee vice chair only a couple of weeks ago and outlined the bill. She said Mims told her he would be opposed because he’s against new government boards and licensing.
Senate Public Health Chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said he doubts he will bring the bill up for a vote in his committee this year.
“It’s sort of late in the session, and I really wasn’t aware of this legislation before we got here,” said Senate Public Health Chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory. “I don’t think the committee would have time to fully study this … I’ve met with two different midwife groups, and I try to listen to people. I learned that at least one group will assign someone to an individual, and they will stay with that person, work with them, throughout their pregnancy and after delivery, and be there for them to discuss other health care issues. I think that is a very good idea, that could perhaps carry over into other health care services, and I am interested in learning more.
“I am neither opposed to nor supportive (of the midwifery legislation), but I have an open mind,” Bryan said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
1964: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was formed
April 26, 1964

Civil rights activists started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the state’s all-white regular delegation to the Democratic National Convention.
The regulars had already adopted this resolution: “We oppose, condemn and deplore the Civil Rights Act of 1964 … We believe in separation of the races in all phases of our society. It is our belief that the separation of the races is necessary for the peace and tranquility of all the people of Mississippi, and the continuing good relationship which has existed over the years.”
In reality, Black Mississippians had been victims of intimidation, harassment and violence for daring to try and vote as well as laws passed to disenfranchise them. As a result, by 1964, only 6% of Black Mississippians were permitted to vote. A year earlier, activists had run a mock election in which thousands of Black Mississippians showed they would vote if given an opportunity.
In August 1964, the Freedom Party decided to challenge the all-white delegation, saying they had been illegally elected in a segregated process and had no intention of supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson in the November election.
The prediction proved true, with white Mississippi Democrats overwhelmingly supporting Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act. While the activists fell short of replacing the regulars, their courageous stand led to changes in both parties.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday
Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.
“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”
The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.



“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”
The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.
“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”
NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.




This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Mississippi Today
With domestic violence law, victims ‘will be a number with a purpose,’ mother says
Joslin Napier. Carlos Collins. Bailey Mae Reed.
They are among Mississippi domestic violence homicide victims whose family members carried their photos as the governor signed a bill that will establish a board to study such deaths and how to prevent them.
Tara Gandy, who lost her daughter Napier in Waynesboro in 2022, said it’s a moment she plans to tell her 5-year-old grandson about when he is old enough. Napier’s presence, in spirit, at the bill signing can be another way for her grandson to feel proud of his mother.
“(The board) will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number,” Gandy said. “They will be a number with a purpose.”
Family members at the April 15 private bill signing included Ashla Hudson, whose son Collins, died last year in Jackson. Grandparents Mary and Charles Reed and brother Colby Kernell attended the event in honor of Bailey Mae Reed, who died in Oxford in 2023.
Joining them were staff and board members from the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the statewide group that supports shelters and advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 2886 to form a Domestic Violence Facility Review Board.
The law will go into effect July 1, and the coalition hopes to partner with elected officials who will make recommendations for members to serve on the board. The coalition wants to see appointees who have frontline experience with domestic violence survivors, said Luis Montgomery, public policy specialist for the coalition.
A spokesperson from Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Establishment of the board would make Mississippi the 45th state to review domestic violence fatalities.
Montgomery has worked on passing a review board bill since December 2023. After an unsuccessful effort in 2024, the coalition worked to build support and educate people about the need for such a board.
In the recent legislative session, there were House and Senate versions of the bill that unanimously passed their respective chambers. Authors of the bills are from both political parties.
The review board is tasked with reviewing a variety of documents to learn about the lead up and circumstances in which people died in domestic violence-related fatalities, near fatalities and suicides – records that can include police records, court documents, medical records and more.
From each review, trends will emerge and that information can be used for the board to make recommendations to lawmakers about how to prevent domestic violence deaths.
“This is coming at a really great time because we can really get proactive,” Montgomery said.
Without a board and data collection, advocates say it is difficult to know how many people have died or been injured in domestic-violence related incidents.
A Mississippi Today analysis found at least 300 people, including victims, abusers and collateral victims, died from domestic violence between 2020 and 2024. That analysis came from reviewing local news stories, the Gun Violence Archive, the National Gun Violence Memorial, law enforcement reports and court documents.
Some recent cases the board could review are the deaths of Collins, Napier and Reed.
In court records, prosecutors wrote that Napier, 24, faced increased violence after ending a relationship with Chance Fabian Jones. She took action, including purchasing a firearm and filing for a protective order against Jones.
Jones’s trial is set for May 12 in Wayne County. His indictment for capital murder came on the first anniversary of her death, according to court records.
Collins, 25, worked as a nurse and was from Yazoo City. His ex-boyfriend Marcus Johnson has been indicted for capital murder and shooting into Collins’ apartment. Family members say Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson.
Johnson was denied bond and remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for July 28 in Hinds County.
He was a Jackson police officer for eight months in 2013. Johnson was separated from the department pending disciplinary action leading up to immediate termination, but he resigned before he was fired, Jackson police confirmed to local media.
Reed, 21, was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Water Valley to live with her grandparents and help care for her cousin, according to her obituary.
Kylan Jacques Phillips was charged with first degree murder for beating Reed, according to court records. In February, the court ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents.
At the bill signing, Gandy said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims.
“We were there knowing we are not alone, we can travel this road together and hopefully find ways to prevent and bring more awareness about domestic violence,” she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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