The Legislature Must Support Healthy Moms, Healthy Pregnancies, and Healthy Babies
At a time when state legislators are considering cuts to women's health, we should be moving in the other direction and strengthening the state's maternal and infant health policies.
These policies are important for fighting racial injustice, saving the state money, supporting infants' and toddlers' early brain development, and keeping moms and babies healthy — and alive.
Our recent maternal health policy brief goes into detail on these challenges and the steps state leaders can take. We also recently outlined where the state's draft Strategic Plan on maternal depression reflects our research and recommendations and where it falls short.
Many — though not all — of the maternal health policy recommendations address the need to ensure more moms have access to health insurance, especially as the state's uninsured rate goes from bad to worse during the pandemic. For more information, take a look at our recent post outlining the steps state leaders should take to reduce the uninsured rate and this post explaining why Texas should be the next state to accept Medicaid expansion funding from the federal government.
