Georgia Ranks Sixth for Maternal deaths Despite having More Rural Maternity Units Open: An Update on Birth Tourism

Written By: Tuhin Sarkar

Tuhin Sarkar

Tuhin Sarkar is a Senior Journalist at Travel and Tour World with more than 10 years of experience in travel and tourism journalism. A post-graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication from Jadavpur University, he combines strong research, industry knowledge and storytelling expertise to produce engaging, insightful and impactful travel news and fascinating feature stories.

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September 4, 2026 6:22 PM

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Georgia ranks sixth for maternal deaths, despite keeping 44% of rural maternity units open. The finding challenges simple explanations and puts access, care capacity and regional health gaps under scrutiny.

Georgia ranks sixth for maternal deaths in a new analysis, despite having 44% of its rural labour and delivery units still open. The finding matters because Georgia has retained a larger share of rural maternity units than every state ranked above it. Yet its maternal mortality rate remains high at 32.1 deaths per 100,000 live births. The study therefore raises a wider question: is simply keeping a maternity unit open enough to protect mothers? Across the South, the numbers show a troubling pattern. Meanwhile, age also changes the risk picture, with older mothers recording substantially higher mortality rates nationally.

Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Rate Raises Questions About Rural Healthcare Access

Georgia is facing a difficult maternal-health paradox. A new analysis places the state sixth among the 39 US states with publishable maternal mortality rates, recording 32.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births between 2019 and 2023.

At the same time, Georgia has retained 44% of its rural labour and delivery units, according to the study. That is the highest proportion among the six states with the highest reported maternal mortality rates.

The finding complicates one of the most common explanations for poor maternal outcomes in rural America: the loss of local maternity services.

Hospital closures and the disappearance of rural obstetric units can make pregnancy and childbirth more difficult, particularly when patients must travel considerable distances for care. However, Georgia’s position suggests that the relationship between the number of open delivery units and maternal mortality is not straightforward.

The analysis, conducted by Birth Injury Lawyer using CDC vital statistics covering 2019 to 2023, does not by itself establish that rural maternity-unit closures cause maternal deaths, nor that keeping units open prevents them.

Instead, it highlights a question that deserves closer scrutiny: what kind of maternity care is actually available when a pregnancy becomes complicated?

The 10 Highest-Risk States for Maternal Mortality:

Georgia records 32.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 births

According to the supplied study findings, Georgia recorded 32.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births during the five-year period.

That placed Georgia sixth nationally among the 39 states for which the CDC publishes comparable rates in the dataset used by the analysis.

California is used as the benchmark in the study’s risk comparison, with Georgia described as having approximately 3.2 times the maternal mortality risk.

The states above Georgia were Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.

Tennessee recorded the highest rate in the analysis at 42.1 deaths per 100,000 live births, followed by Louisiana at 40.7, Mississippi at 39.7, Alabama at 38.6 and Arkansas at 35.3.

Georgia followed at 32.1.

The figures show that the issue is not confined to one state. Six Southern states occupy the first six positions in the ranking.

That concentration makes the regional dimension particularly important for journalists, policymakers and healthcare providers examining maternal outcomes.

Rural maternity access tells a more complicated story

The rural labour and delivery figures add another layer to the story.

Georgia reportedly has 44% of its rural labour and delivery units still active. Among the six states above it in the mortality ranking, that is the highest share.

Tennessee has 41% of rural units remaining, according to the analysis. Louisiana has 38%, Mississippi 31%, Alabama 29% and Arkansas 33%.

The comparison immediately challenges the assumption that a larger number of operating rural delivery units automatically corresponds with lower maternal mortality.

However, it would be equally misleading to conclude that rural maternity services do not matter.

A delivery unit’s existence does not necessarily indicate the full range of medical resources available to a patient.

A hospital may provide routine labour and delivery services while lacking a neonatal intensive care unit, maternal-fetal medicine specialists, advanced surgical capabilities or other forms of emergency support.

In a serious obstetric emergency, the difference between having a local delivery unit and having immediate access to specialised care can be significant.

That makes the quality, capability and connectivity of rural maternity care important subjects for further reporting.

Alabama shows the same contrast

Alabama provides another striking comparison.

The study places Alabama fourth, with a maternal mortality rate of 38.6 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Yet only 29% of its rural labour and delivery units remain active, according to the analysis.

That is considerably lower than Georgia’s 44%.

The contrast does not prove that Georgia’s stronger rural maternity-unit retention is responsible for its lower mortality rate. There are numerous factors that can influence maternal outcomes, including access to prenatal care, underlying health conditions, socioeconomic circumstances, insurance coverage, racial disparities, emergency response, specialist availability and the quality of care received before, during and after childbirth.

Nevertheless, the comparison is useful because it demonstrates why a single metric cannot explain maternal mortality.

Six Southern states dominate the highest-risk ranking

The geographical pattern is one of the clearest findings.

Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia occupy the top six positions in the supplied ranking.

Their maternal mortality rates range from 42.1 to 32.1 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Indiana follows Georgia at 30.9, while Arizona records 30.0. Oklahoma stands at 29.6 and Kentucky at 28.9.

The concentration of high rates across the South suggests that journalists should look beyond individual hospital closures and examine wider healthcare conditions across state and regional systems.

That could include prenatal and postpartum care, transportation, insurance, specialist access and the availability of emergency obstetric services.

For rural communities, distance remains an obvious practical consideration. But distance is only one part of the equation.

The pandemic years are part of the picture

The 2019-2023 study period also needs context.

Those years include the COVID-19 pandemic, during which maternal mortality increased substantially in the United States.

The national maternal mortality rate subsequently declined. The supplied study notes a national rate of 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024.

That means Georgia’s five-year rate of 32.1 remains substantially higher than the 2024 national figure, although the two numbers cover different periods and should not be treated as directly equivalent measures.

This distinction matters in responsible reporting.

A five-year state rate should not be presented as though it were a current single-year measurement. Likewise, a ranking based on 2019-2023 data should not automatically be described as a ranking of maternal mortality in 2026.

The figures are best understood as evidence of a persistent pattern that warrants continued investigation.

Maternal age adds another dimension

Age is another important factor highlighted by the supplied research.

Nationally, women aged 40 and older recorded 62.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024, compared with 13.7 among women under 25, according to the figures provided.

That represents a substantial difference.

Age-related risk can therefore provide an additional reporting lens alongside geography and healthcare access.

It also reinforces why maternal mortality should not be reduced to a single explanation.

A state’s overall rate reflects a population with different ages, health profiles, socioeconomic circumstances and levels of access to care.

For reporters examining Georgia, the next useful step would be to investigate whether maternal mortality patterns differ by age, race, rurality, income, insurance status and other relevant demographic or healthcare factors.

Open does not always mean fully equipped

The most important takeaway from Georgia’s 44% figure may be what it does not tell us.

It tells us how many rural labour and delivery units remain active. It does not establish how those facilities are staffed or what services they can provide.

A mother could have access to a local maternity unit but still require transfer to another hospital if complications arise.

That distinction is particularly important in rural healthcare reporting.

Questions about ambulance availability, transfer times, specialist coverage, operating-room readiness, blood supplies, intensive-care capacity and maternal-fetal medicine access can reveal a very different picture from a simple count of open units.

The study therefore provides a starting point rather than a complete explanation.

What the study can — and cannot — establish

The analysis draws on CDC vital statistics from 2019 to 2023 and covers 39 states with publishable maternal mortality rates.

The CDC suppresses certain state-level rates when death counts are too small to provide reliable reporting. It also cautions that comparisons between states involve uncertainty, particularly where numbers are relatively small and reporting practices can differ.

Those limitations are important.

The study identifies an association between maternal mortality rates and the reported availability of rural labour and delivery units, but it does not establish a causal relationship.

In other words, Georgia’s 44% figure cannot be used to conclude that keeping more rural units open causes maternal mortality to rise or fall.

Nor can Alabama’s 29% figure prove that fewer open units cause its higher rate.

The figures instead show that the maternal-health challenge is more complicated than hospital availability alone.

What Georgia’s numbers mean for healthcare and travel

For communities outside major urban centres, maternal healthcare also has a practical mobility dimension.

Patients who need specialist appointments, high-risk pregnancy services or emergency transfers may have to travel beyond their immediate communities.

That can make distance, transport availability and journey time important considerations for families and healthcare planners.

However, the supplied research does not quantify those travel distances or establish their direct contribution to Georgia’s maternal mortality rate. Any such claim would require separate evidence.

That is precisely where further reporting can add value: examining how far rural patients travel, how quickly emergency transfers occur and whether specialist services are accessible when complications emerge.

“Studies that examine healthcare access through a wider lens are valuable because they encourage more informed conversations about the realities facing communities beyond major cities. Georgia’s findings are particularly notable because the state has retained a relatively high share of rural labour and delivery units while still recording a high maternal mortality rate. This reminds us that availability alone does not tell the complete story. From an editorial perspective, the findings create an opportunity to look more closely at connectivity, specialist access, emergency transfers and the practical challenges faced by rural families. Evidence-led reporting can help readers understand these complex issues without reducing them to a single cause.” says, Anup Kumar Keshan, Editor-in-Chief, TTW

The cause cannot be reduced to rural hospital closures. Georgia’s 32.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births show that keeping 44% of rural delivery units active has not, by itself, produced a low mortality rate. The answer lies in examining the wider care system: prenatal services, emergency obstetric capability, specialist access, transfers and postpartum support. The reason is straightforward. An open maternity unit may provide local deliveries without offering every service required during a complex pregnancy or emergency. The study therefore exposes a gap between physical access and comprehensive care. Further research is needed before any single factor is identified as causal.

Georgia’s sixth-place maternal mortality ranking is significant, but the 44% share of active rural labour and delivery units makes the story more complicated than a simple hospital-closure narrative. The state recorded 32.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births from 2019 to 2023, while Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas recorded higher rates despite retaining fewer rural delivery units. That contrast does not prove that open units guarantee safer outcomes. Instead, it points towards a broader question about the depth and quality of care available inside those facilities and the speed of access to specialist services when emergencies occur. The pandemic also influenced the study period, while maternal age presents another major risk factor. For Georgia, the numbers should prompt closer examination of prenatal care, rural access, specialist capacity, emergency transfers and postpartum support.