Mississippi birth workers launch podcast on maternal health and recovery

A new Mississippi podcast is trying to make pregnancy and postpartum care less isolated for families who often hear too little, too late. Midwifery in the ’Sip, created by two birth workers, opened a space for honest, culturally grounded conversations about maternal health, birth and recovery that reach beyond the clinic and into everyday family life.

In Oxford and Lafayette County, that matters because women’s-health information often travels through a small network of advocates, caregivers and educators who translate complicated medical issues into practical guidance. The show was framed as both a media project and a community-care effort, meant to preserve birth knowledge and make maternal health more understandable for parents, neighbors and professionals across North Mississippi and the broader South.

The need for that kind of plainspoken discussion is underscored by Mississippi’s maternal-health record. The Mississippi State Department of Health’s 2024 Maternal Mortality Report covers deaths from 2019 through 2023, and the agency has said 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the state were preventable, while 92% had some opportunity to alter the final outcome. MSDH also reported that in 2020 Black, non-Hispanic women had a pregnancy-related mortality rate four times higher than White, non-Hispanic women.

National data show the same pattern. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the U.S. maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2023 was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 14.5 for White women. Those numbers point to more than a medical problem; they reflect a system in which access, trust and timely care still do not reach every family equally.

Mississippi has spent the past two years building policy around that reality. MSDH released a Mississippi Maternal Health Action Plan and Strategies Guide in October 2024 and a Mississippi Black Maternal and Prenatal Health Focus Group Report that same year. The agency also held the 2024 Mississippi Maternal Health Conference in Vicksburg, where sessions included Dads as Doulas, Paradigm Shift in Maternal Health and Patient Developed Maternal Care.

The access gap is especially sharp in rural Mississippi, where families may face long drives, fewer specialists and fragmented care. Rural Health Information Hub says the state has 29 critical access hospitals, seven rural emergency hospitals, 246 rural health clinics and 251 federally qualified health centers. MSDH says its Mississippi Center for Rural Health and Population Studies helps rural communities build care systems and place primary care providers, a reminder that information and infrastructure have to work together.

That is what makes Midwifery in the ’Sip more than a launch. In a state that recorded 323 infant deaths in 2024 and an infant mortality rate of 9.7 per 1,000 live births, compared with the national average of 5.5, a community-rooted conversation about pregnancy and recovery is part of the public-health response itself.