Research Alert: October 5, 2026

Regional Highlights: Changes in Hospital-Based Obstetric Care in the U.S., 2010-2024

The purpose of this report is to provide highlights of hospital-level changes in obstetric care availability across the four U.S. Census regions, both over time (2010-2024) and in the most recent year of data available (2024).

Key Findings:

• Both urban and rural hospitals saw losses of obstetric services in all U.S. Census regions from 2010 to 2024. Among urban hospitals, the percent without obstetric services increased fairly consistently across U.S. regions from 2010 to 2024, while rural hospitals saw much greater regional variation.
• Rural hospitals in the South consistently had the greatest percentage of hospitals without obstetric services, increasing from half (50.1%, 367/733) of all rural hospitals in 2010 to over 6 out of every 10 hospitals (64.2%, 484/754) without services in 2024.
• Within each region, obstetric services availability varied across states between 2010 and 2024, and while many states saw increased challenges in obstetric services availability, a few states had minimal losses or gained services during this time.

Additional Resources of Interest:

• More FORHP-funded research on Hospitals and clinics, Maternal health
• More information about the Rural Maternal Health Data Support and Analysis Program
• More information about the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
• More information from the Rural Health Information Hub's topic guide: Maternal Health