Abide Women\u2019s Health Services says up-to-date information about pregnancy-related and maternal deaths can be critical to preventing future deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can have education, income, health insurance, and that does not eliminate the disparities that we see in maternal health outcomes,\u201d Gia Thompson of Abide Women\u2019s Health Services said.<\/p>\n
Abide Women\u2019s Health Services serves historically underserved communities through pregnancy, birth and postpartum needs in South Dallas and now Fort Worth.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding why mothers are dying is what helps us ensure that we can prevent the next mother from dying,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
The Texas House Women\u2019s Health Caucus is criticizing the state Health and Human Services\u2019 timing for the release of the 2026 Joint Maternal Mortality Report, which moved from September to December, after the midterm elections and a month before the legislative session begins.<\/p>\n
Experts with Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute also expressed concerns to the Houston Chronicle about expected omissions related to the first two years of the state\u2019s near-total abortion ban.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services said the biennial report is not \u201cdelayed\u201d and is going through an internal review process.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the acting commissioner directed the committee to strengthen the report to make clearer connections between the data, findings and recommendations. The agency also emphasized that the previous Legislature approved moving such deadlines to Dec. 1.<\/p>\n
Faith Fletcher, a public health and bioethics expert, said the timing of information can affect how people view the health care system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely influences people’s perceptions of healthcare and also can really diminish public trust,\u201d Fletcher said.<\/p>\n
Fletcher said timely releases can influence changes in state and national health policy and help track the impacts of measures such as the expansion of postpartum care through Medicaid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need evidence-based data to improve clinical practices, to improve the way that providers care for us, to think about ways to engage in better public health prevention,\u201d Fletcher said.<\/p>\n
Whether the latest numbers are one month or three months away, Thompson said Abide\u2019s work will continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving the report does help us ensure that we’re prepared, but we’re going to provide the care that we provide no matter what,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abide Women\u2019s Health Services says up-to-date information about pregnancy-related and maternal deaths can be critical to preventing future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,584,10867],"class_list":["post-439504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-health","tag-health-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}