Community Births – A Solution to Maternity Care Deserts
According to the March of Dimes 2024 report, "Nowhere to Go: Maternity Care Deserts Across the United States," 1,104 counties, or about 35% of the nation’s 3,142 counties, are designated as Maternity Care Deserts.
These areas lack any birthing facilities or obstetric clinicians, affecting over 2.3 million birthing individuals. As a result, 1 in 10 birthing people must travel outside their communities for essential maternity care, leading to less prenatal care and higher preterm birth rates.
Between 2020 and 2022, over 10,000 babies were born prematurely in these deserts. Establishing a Community Birth Ecosystem, which offers both clinical and non-clinical support, can help improve access to necessary care and ensure healthier outcomes for mothers and their babies.
A vibrant panel discussion, facilitated by Andrea Palmer, of the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, and panelists:
▪️Dr. Cristina Alonso Lord, Director of Pregnancy, Infancy, and Early Childhood at the MA Department of Public Health
▪️Indra Lusero, Founder/Executive Director, Elephant Circle
▪️Ebony Marcelle, Director of Midwifery, Community of Hope (FQHC)
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Pathway to Healing Hubs: A Community Reflection & Action Guide
Planning Tool October 15, 2025
This template is designed to help you co-create a healing hub in your community that centers joy, love, cultural wisdom, and lived experience. Use the space provided to reflect, plan, and dream together.
Bridging the Divide between Child Welfare and Home Visiting Systems to Address the Needs of Pregnant and Parenting Youth in Care
Article February 21, 2025
This article presents findings from an implementation study of a pilot project that connected pregnant and parenting youth in care with home visiting services. It draws primarily on semistructured interviews conducted with the practitioners who delivered those services and the parents who received them. We find that home visiting services can be delivered successfully to pregnant and parenting youth in care and that both practitioners and parents reported that parents benefit from those services. We also find that engaging and delivering services to pregnant and parenting youth in care presents substantial challenges and that home visiting programs sometimes deviated from their standard practices in response. The study has implications for future efforts to provide home visiting services to pregnant and parenting youth in care or to other families involved in the child welfare system.
Dear Child Welfare Colleague Letter from ACF
Report February 21, 2025
The Children's Bureau (CB) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is committed to fostering a child welfare system that is focused on supporting families. The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) and its title IV-E prevention program provides a watershed opportunity to create more equitable outcomes for children, youth, and families before they face the tumult and devastating consequences of maltreatment and separation. The ACF has worked diligently to support jurisdictions as they develop, submit, revise, and implement prevention plans, and we are continuously examining how to streamline processes and improve supports. This letter includes resources to aid jurisdictions as they develop their plans, including links to prevention plans that have been approved, sample program plans, resources for tribes, and responses to policy questions.