https://kffhealthnews.org/health-industry/obstetric-carts-georgia-maternal-health-labor-delivery-rural-hospitals-south-carolina/ Georgia's answer to the shuttering of labor and delivery units in rural counties? OB crash carts for the ER: More than $12 million — out of the nearly $219 million approved for Georgia in the program’s first year — will be allocated toward placing obstetric carts in 43 rural hospitals without labor and delivery units. The carts will be outfitted with supplies needed for a birth or obstetric emergency. For example, they’ll have neonatal resuscitation tools, thermal blankets, and essential medications such as oxytocin, which stimulates contractions, and magnesium sulfate, used to treat seizures in pregnant people with high blood pressure. The delivery carts sound fine, in theory, said Justin Peterson, an OB-GYN who practices in southern Georgia and has seen the pressures rural health institutions face providing maternal care. Like Holden, Peterson worries that the carts, while helpful, will put supplies in the hands of ER doctors lacking extensive obstetric experience. Instead, he wants the state to fill coverage gaps by investing more to prevent the closure of labor and delivery units in rural areas. “You’re putting a band-aid on a hemorrhage,” he said. What could go wrong? One answer to that question was the topic of a recent This American Life episode: "A doctor trained as a midwife tells the eye-popping story of how she and others came together to save a baby during a birth that suddenly went wrong, in a part of rural Maine where the local labor and delivery unit had closed less than a month before."   submitted by   /u/Apprehensive-Safe382 [link]   [comments]