Mississippi Today
Q&A with maternal fetal medicine doctor on health care for moms in Mississippi

Dr. Michelle Owens, a maternal fetal medicine specialist, is currently the National Secretary for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the president of the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure and the clinical director at Mae Health. She has been practicing as an OB-GYN in Mississippi since 2004.
Owens spoke with reporter Pam Dankins following the death of three-time Olympic medalist Tori Bowie, from Sandhill, Mississippi.
In early May, Bowie was found deceased at her Florida home. According to the autopsy report issued by the Orlando medical examiner’s office, the 32-year-old was eight months pregnant, alone at home and undergoing labor at the time of her death. The 2012 University of Southern Mississippi graduate reportedly experienced complications such as respiratory distress and eclampsia, a rare high blood pressure condition linked to seizures.
Kimberly Holland, Bowie’s agent, stated to CBS that Bowie didn’t trust hospitals.
For Black women in Mississippi and across the United States, pregnancies and child births are even more dangerous. In Mississippi, the pregnancy-related mortality ratio had increased from 33.2 to 36.0 deaths per 100,000 live births in the span of three years.
The same report further showed the pregnancy-related mortality rate of 65.1 deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women was more than quadruple the death ratio for white women.
Owens explained in a sit down with Mississippi Today that policymakers, health care providers and communities must address underlying factors – hypertension, mental health, infections, etc. – within maternal health in order to ensure that all women, regardless of race or ethnicity, have access to care and support.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Pam Dankins: What was your reaction to the news of Tori Bowie’s death?
Michelle Owens: Well, I think my response might have been a little different because I have been doing work in this space. For me, I think it was sadness also mixed with a tinge of frustration because Tori wasn’t the first, and this is something that is increasingly more common. When I think about the people who I’ve had the privilege of caring for, who are in many instances, people from underrepresented groups and from marginalized communities, this is way too common in those communities.
It makes you think, ‘What can you do? Who is immune?’ You can be a highly competitive athlete at the top of your game, and this still occurs. Some of the complications of pregnancy are not just set aside for those people who are unhealthy.
The truth is that pregnancy complications, life-threatening pregnancy complications, can also occur in those people who we would think of as being, you know, the epitome of health. And so, it was frustrating and sad because we know that a lot of these deaths could be preventable. Every death is one more too many.
Dankins: What has been done to reduce maternal mortality in the state?
Owens: So in Mississippi, since 2017, we have a maternal mortality review committee (MMRC), and that committee has been charged with the responsibility of reviewing maternal deaths. They take a deeper dive into each of those situations and make recommendations about the issues that we discover that ultimately, will hopefully, help to decrease mortality rates.
Our State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney has decided to elevate maternal health as one of the priorities during his tenure. He’s tried to help by not only spreading the word but engaging the medical community and community partners by using the State Department of Health as a vehicle. This way the general public can be aware of the risks and how pregnancy complications can influence not only maternal health, but also health across the lifespan of a birthing person.
There are community organizations that are spread across the state, and there are community partners who are working to help raise awareness. For instance, Mom Me is an organization that kind of focuses on maternal mental health services. Six Dimensions is another organization that is really interested in helping to improve outcomes among Black birthing people.
I think through our Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative (a network of teams collaborating with the state Health Department to improve maternal and infant care), the MMRC (maternal mortality review committee) and the assistance of our state health officer, there’s a lot of positive movement in spreading awareness and helping people to understand the problem. The maternal health crisis is not just in Mississippi but in our country. And, the people who tend to know the least about it are the ones who are at the greatest risk and sense of potentially being most affected.
Dankins: How can you spread awareness to people who may have trouble accessing this information?
Owens: Well, I think the most important thing is meeting people where they are. It’s talking to people in where they live, like at churches and at sporting events. I hope that people understand that we can’t take our health for granted. And just because you are quote, healthy or healthier than most, it still doesn’t mean that you can’t have a life-threatening complication, especially when it pertains to pregnancy. I think that we need to be talking about this in our communities, neighborhoods, Facebook groups, group chats with our friends and wherever there are groups of people who care about each other. It needs to be part of the conversation.
Because only through making sure that people have awareness, do we really make significant strides in closing gaps once people have the awareness.
We also have to make sure that the people who are supposed to be listening, are listening and responding. It’s not entirely on the families of these individuals and themselves. There is a substantial portion of that burden that is also carried by the health care community, that when these concerns are raised, that we are doing our due diligence to fully investigate them in order to ensure that people are getting the care that they need and deserve.
Dankins: Why, with all of the resources the United States has, do we rank so poorly in this area in Mississippi specifically?
Owens: The answer to that is multifactorial.
I think we have challenges as a primarily rural state, and we have the challenge of maternal health deserts. There are so many counties within our state where people don’t have ready access to women’s health services. Like obstetrical care, how many places can you deliver? How many hospitals actually perform deliveries? How many places actually have an OB-GYN, a nurse midwife or a family medicine doctor who performs deliveries? Number one, there aren’t a lot of people that are doing this work. Number two, those people tend to be more highly concentrated in more populous areas. And so, our rural areas of the state have specific challenges because there can be broad swaths of land where there’s nobody providing care.
There are, of course, social challenges. I mean, the vestiges of structural racism that exist within our state, and not just our state, but within this part of the country. The socioeconomic divide and issues with people not being able to access affordable health care. Fortunately, most of the people who would fall into that category when they’re pregnant would have access to Medicaid, and thankfully now, will have coverage for up to a year after birth. Those are some of the small wins that hopefully will help to make a difference but there are many challenges.
That’s why it is going to take a concerted effort on all fronts for us to see the change that is needed. Because it’s not like there’s just one main contributor to the problem. There are several small things that we have to really work on. And once we do it right for a while, we have to be consistent and maintain our vigilance as we’re working to optimize maternal health. We can’t do it for a couple of years, see our numbers get better and then go back to the way things were. We have to make sure that the changes that we implement are sustainable, and that they continue to be passed on. We have to spread the things that work from institution to institution and from providers and practices on to other providers and other practices, so that we see this as a sustainable improvement for our state.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons 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.
Mississippi Today
Court to rule on DeSoto County Senate districts with special elections looming
A federal three-judge panel will rule in coming days on how political power in northwest Mississippi will be allocated in the state Senate and whether any incumbents in the DeSoto County area might have to campaign against each other in November special elections.
The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered state officials last week 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 latest map proposed by the all-Republican State Board of Election Commissioners tweaked only four Senate districts in northwest Mississippi and does not pit any incumbent senators against each other.
The state’s proposal would keep the Senate districts currently held by Sen. Michael McLendon, a Republican from Hernando and Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, in majority-white districts.
But it makes Sen. David Parker’s district a slightly majority-Black district. Parker, a white Republican from Olive Branch, would run in a district with a 50.1% black voting-age population, according to court documents.
The proposal also maintains the district held by Sen. Reginald Jackson, a Democrat from Marks, as a majority-Black district, although it reduces the Black voting age population from 61% to 53%.
Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch comprise the State Board of Election Commissioners. Reeves and Watson voted to approve the plan. But Watson, according to meeting documents, expressed a wish that the state had more time to consider different proposals.
Fitch did not attend the meeting, but Deputy Attorney General Whitney Lipscomb attended in her place. Lipscomb voted against the map, although it is unclear why. Fitch’s office declined to comment on why she voted against the map because it involves pending litigation.
The reason for redrawing the districts is that the state chapter of the NAACP and Black voters in the state sued Mississippi officials for drawing legislative districts in a way that dilutes Black voting power.
The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU, are likely to object to the state’s newest proposal, and they have until April 29 to file an objection with the court
The plaintiffs have put forward two alternative proposals for the area in the event the judges rule against the state’s plans.
The first option would place McLendon and Blackwell in the same district, and the other would place McLendon and Jackson in the same district.
It is unclear when the panel of judges will issue a ruling on the state’s plan, but they will not issue a ruling until the plaintiffs file their remaining court documents next week.
While the November election is roughly six months away, changing legislative districts across counties and precincts is technical work, and local election officials need time to prepare for the races.
The judges have not yet ruled on the full elections calendar, but U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick said at a hearing earlier this month that the panel was committed have the elections in November.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
Jim talks with Rep. Robert Andrade about his investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation
-
News from the South - Virginia News Feed7 days ago
Highs in the upper 80s Saturday, backdoor cold front will cool us down a bit on Easter Sunday
-
News from the South - Arkansas News Feed7 days ago
Valerie Storm Tracker
-
News from the South - Kentucky News Feed7 days ago
U.S. Supreme Court pauses deportations under wartime law
-
Mississippi Today5 days ago
‘Trainwreck on the horizon’: The costly pains of Mississippi’s small water and sewer systems
-
News from the South - Alabama News Feed4 days ago
Prayer Vigil Held for Ronald Dumas Jr., Family Continues to Pray for His Return | April 21, 2025 | N
-
News from the South - Texas News Feed5 days ago
Meteorologist Chita Craft is tracking a Severe Thunderstorm Warning that's in effect now
-
Mississippi Today7 days ago
On this day in 1977, Alex Haley awarded Pulitzer for ‘Roots’