Montana ranks sixth in the nation for pregnancy-related deaths. Within the state, rural and Native women suffer disproportionate numbers of pregnancy-related complications. Now hopes are high that a new nurse-midwifery program will improve women’s health care for the state’s rural, frontier, and Native communities.
Beginning this fall, Montana State University’s College of Nursing will launch the state’s first nurse-midwifery program. Nurse-midwives give prenatal and post-partum care and attend births. They also provide primary care to women.
Mariah Hill is the midwifery program lead.
"We're looking at the reality of what Montana families are facing, which are preventable deaths and preventable serious kind of health consequences that are disproportionately experienced by our rural and indigenous families," says Hill. "We can change that by steadily increasing the number of healthcare providers trained and ready to take care of these women in the pregnant and postpartum period. "
The nurse-midwifery track will be one of three in the College’s existing Doctor of Nursing Practice program. The two others are family health and psychiatric mental health. All use a combination of distance learning and in-person clinical experiences.
Getting the nurse-midwifery program off the ground has been a years-long process made possible with a portion of the $101 million gift from Mark and Robyn Jones in 2021. Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings will endow the program and support student travel for clinical experiences.
Applicants to this fall’s inaugural class must have a bachelor’s degree in nursing and be Montana residents. In keeping with its land-grant mission, MSU seeks nurses from rural, frontier, and Native communities already practicing in those areas.
Montana ranks among the worst in maternal mortality and post-partum suicide. Nationwide, one in ten women suffer from postpartum depression; in Montana, it’s closer to one in six, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Infant mortality rates and preterm births are also higher than the national average, according to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services.
Hill says increasing early access to prenatal care closer to home could help.
"When you're facing such significant challenges to getting to your prenatal visits, it makes it a lot harder to get sometimes that kind of early identification of a pregnancy complication that can be life-saving," says Hill.
