This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com.

A new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health found that access to obstetric care across the country has declined, and that those closures have hit rural communities the hardest. New data includes the four years from 2018 to 2022, when the national policy designed to preserve obstetrics units was already in place.

The study looked at the status of obstetric services between 2010 and 2022 in nearly 5,000 short-term, acute care hospitals in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Using an enhanced algorithm, the researchers determined whether hospitals stopped providing obstetric services over the 12-year period, and whether those hospit

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