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Birth and death: Meet the Mississippi moms who fear for their lives a year after Roe fell


This story is a collaboration between USA TODAY and The Tennessean as part of the documentary video series “States of America.” The full episode of “States of America” exploring Mississippi’s maternal health care crisis premieres at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern on June 23 on Paste BN Network's streaming channel available on Samsung TV Plus (Channel 1023), Roku, Plex and many more. You can also catch our full series on YouTube

Nearly everyone we asked in Mississippi knows someone — someone who lost a baby or lost their life, or came too close. A friend, a sister, a neighbor, themselves.

Brittany Lampkin’s newborn was flushed and perfect. Until she wasn’t.  

Shirley’s pregnancy shot hormones through her body that threatened her life.  

Dr. Lakeisha Richardson delivers up to 10 babies a week, and tries to keep everyone alive.  

With about 35,000 births per year, Mississippi already had the worst infant mortality rate in the country, and one of the worst maternal mortality rates.  

Then, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled against Mississippi’s abortion clinic. Every state in the South has since limited abortion access. Mississippi had 2,100 fewer abortions in the first six months after the ruling, according to a report by the Society of Family Planning. The state’s health director projected 5,000 more babies would be born this year in a state where pregnancy care was already stretched tauter than a third-trimester belly. 

Nationwide, the U.S. infant and maternal mortality rates are worse than in other high-income countries, especially for people of color. The number of abortions performed in the U.S. fell by more than 32,000 in the second half of 2022, according to the Society of Family Planning. Some cheer that result. But there are consequences. 

People in Mississippi, across the South and across the country are working to improve maternal and infant mortality. For instance, Mississippi recently extended Medicaid from 60 days postpartum to a full 12 months.  

However, solutions don’t happen overnight.

“The system is not ready” for thousands more babies, Mississippi health director Dr. Daniel Edney said. He worries about it “every day and every night.”  

The pregnant women we met are more than worried. Alongside their joy and ordinary stresses, they are scared. It can be frightening to be pregnant in the Deep South, wondering whether you and your baby will survive. Especially now.

Because when the bough breaks, statistically, more cradles will fall.

'Like, tough it out'

For her third pregnancy, Brittany Lampkin tried to do everything right. Her great-grandmother had died in childbirth — and now, she heard, the crisis was coming back, Black women and babies dying. “I was really scared,” she said.  

Lampkin got herself on desk work at her overnight prison job. She went to a Black woman doctor and hired a doula for support. They lived an hour away. Where Lampkin lives, Bentonia, there are no obstetricians or birthing ward.  

There were some concerns. Lampkin had persistent pain in her lower belly and legs. An ultrasound tech said she had a low-lying placenta. It would correct itself.  She tried to brush off the pain. “Whenever I kept feeling it, bringing it back up and being dismissed again, I was like, OK, you kind of just being a nuisance at this point. Like, tough it out. And so I did,” she said.  

Meanwhile, the baby’s father, Lampkin's high school ex, was painting a bedroom pink. Lampkin found an adorable outfit for their daughter’s first photos: a crocheted Minnie Mouse set, complete with a bonnet with ears. They chose the name Jailyn Adore.  

At 35 weeks, in January 2022, Lampkin's amniotic fluid decreased. Then it was gone. Jailyn had to come out right away. Squatting in the hospital, in active labor, Lampkin felt the urge to push. The nurse stopped her — the obstetrician hadn’t arrived yet.  

Lampkin held it, flickering in and out of consciousness, humming to soothe the pain.  

Her doula wanted to say something. But doulas have to stay in their lane — they’re not medical providers.  

Finally, the nurse said, “I’m going to have to deliver her.” Lampkin pushed. It took only a minute.  

Lampkin rested her sweet baby on her chest and counted her perfect toes. The nurses took the baby for the usual checks.  

Time passed. No Jailyn. Then a nurse rushed in with a wheelchair. “We have to go,” she said. “I don’t think your baby’s going to make it.”  

Lampkin’s breath left her body. What?  

In the bassinet, Jailyn had tubes coming out of her body and an oxygen mask. There was blood. She was gone. 

“Are you sure she’s not breathing?” Lampkin said. “Can I hold her?” Jailyn was warm. Lampkin whispered, “It’s going to be OK, baby.”

In a quiet room, the parents cuddled their baby. Jailyn was swaddled like Lampkin’s other babies, the ones who lived.  

They pulled off her bonnet. Jailyn had a head full of cowlicks. “I do not know what I would've done with this hair,” Lampkin said.  

Jailyn’s father held her and said, “I had so many plans for you,” as if he could speak life back into her.  

All Lampkin was doing was “trying not to lose my mind,” she said. “Trying to hold on to what was left of my sanity in that moment.” 

She returned home with Jailyn’s first and last photos, in the Minnie Mouse outfit, looking as though she was asleep. 

Her son Nicholas was upset and confused. He kept asking, “Why did she have to die? Other people's sisters don't die. I wanted to hold her.” 

Lampkin had to walk away. It was the same questions she had, and she didn’t have answers. 

She still doesn’t. The autopsy report said cause of death unknown, Lampkin said.  

Lampkin turned to Dr. Google. Maybe it was vasa previa, she thought. That’s when placental blood vessels lie across the cervix and rupture during labor, associated with a low-lying placenta.  

She had to stop before she turned into one big question mark. Lampkin began therapy and began speaking out. The week of what would have been Jailyn’s first birthday, she was at the Capitol advocating for other women, for Mississippi to extend postpartum Medicaid benefits

“I love Mississippi. But we’ve got a ways to go,” she said. “We need help. We don't want to die. Our children are dying as well. We don't want our children to die. Something needs to be done.” 

Lampkin didn’t want to be “another one of those numbers. Another one of the stories,” she said.  

But she is.  

'I trust her with my life'

play
Doctor explains impact of abortion law on women in the South
“I didn't go to medical school to have to think about going to jail.” Mississippi OB/GYN explains challenges of practicing medicine under abortion ban.
Yasmeen Qureshi, Mona Iskander, Andrea Kramar and Danielle Dreilinger, Paste BN

Lacey Lowrey, 23 and pregnant with her third, sat in Dr. Lakeisha Richardson’s wood-paneled waiting room in Greenville, Miss. She drives an hour for her appointments, from Arkansas. Richardson saved her mother’s life, she said, finding tumors when a local doctor dismissed the pain. She came to the rescue again when Lowrey began bleeding after her second baby. “I trust her with my life,” Lowrey said.  

Bianca Ray, 34, was worried. Her phone case was plastered with photos of her first baby, who lived only 24 hours — an undetected genetic defect. Ray had gotten ultrasounds in Jackson, two hours away. That’s where the closest neonatal intensive care unit and high-risk pregnancy experts are. Dr. Richardson would tell her the latest news.

They were two of the 26 pregnant patients visiting Richardson’s clinic that April Thursday. That's not more than usual. Richardson is one of two full-time obstetricians covering four counties. She and the other doctor coordinate vacations.  

Richardson was born and raised in the Delta and planned to leave forever. But her family is there. And the enormous need. Most of her patients are on Medicaid. Most have a risk factor for problems in pregnancy and childbirth — diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, thyroid problems or simply being a teenager.  

Poverty grinds at women’s health. Patients have to prioritize feeding their children over taking care of themselves. Richardson understands that.  

Investigating Lowrey’s leg cramps and bruises, Richardson prescribed compression socks, magnesium lotion and a platelets check, then asked how much Lowrey was working. Eight to 12 hours per shift. Six or seven days in a row.  

Richardson paused. She smiled at Lowrey and asked, “Do you need to work a lot?”  

Lowrey kind of laughed. Richardson turned to Lowrey’s mother and said, gently, “Do we need to work a lot, Mom?”   

There are bills, Lowrey’s mom said.  

“OK,” Richardson said, but warned, “If it doesn’t get better, we’re going to have to talk about cutting back on work, just a little bit.” She strategized as she slid the ultrasound transducer over Lowrey's belly: Would the supermarket let Lowrey work in the office, seated?  

The baby’s heartbeat galloped like a horse through the ultrasound speaker. 

In Ray’s room, Richardson had good news. “What happened to your first baby — this baby doesn't have that, at least by ultrasound,” she said.  

Mississippi midwives' superpower: Listening when doctors do not

Richardson wanted to take more time to reassure Ray. But she had to race to the hospital to deliver Savannah Smith’s baby.  

It happened quickly. Smith had her knees up on stirrups. Her faux-fur slippers lay next to an armchair. Richardson told her to push, and a fretful wail cut the room.  

The baby’s father, Marquis Robinson, cut the umbilical cord. Richardson delivered the placenta into a tub and checked Smith for lacerations. 

“No stitches! You did great! It was a little rough there?” she asked. Smith nodded.  

Robinson cradled the boy, Markees Jermaine, and handed him to his mom to kiss.  

Richardson was already on her way back to the clinic, to address more patients’ worries.  

Hard to decide, hard to carry out

Shirley never, never thought she’d have an abortion. She didn’t even think she could get pregnant. Not while fighting stage 3 breast cancer, severe COVID-19 and a mini stroke. For months she couldn’t walk. Her youngest child was just months old and fussed for Mama. Her oldest was 13 and terrified.  

By the time Shirley took a pregnancy test in November 2022, she was 18 weeks along. Her oncologist sounded the alarm. He couldn't treat her cancer while she was pregnant, he said. Her cancer was estrogen-responsive. If she continued her pregnancy, as she understood it, “I wouldn’t have a chance at living,” she said.  

It wasn't a good idea to go ahead with the pregnancy, he said. The decision was hers.

But in a way, it wasn't. Mississippi’s abortion law has an exception for when the woman’s life is in danger. However, that’s for when the pregnancy or birth itself will kill you, said Dr. Richardson, who is not Shirley's doctor. It doesn’t mean situations like Shirley’s, where the pregnancy worsens a condition that will then kill you. 

play
How Post-Roe abortion laws impact women in South
Under Mississippi’s abortion ban, Shirley makes a life-or-death decision.

Shirley agonized over the decision. She prayed on it. She felt connected to the baby in her womb, her second boy.  

In the end, there was only one option.  

“I felt that it would be selfish for me to continue the pregnancy, knowing that the outcome could be that I'm not here to raise my other children,” she said. “I'm going to do what I have to do, and that's not die.” 

She asked God for forgiveness. 

Shirley's oncologist contacted people who made an appointment for her in New York City and covered the costs of the procedure and travel.

It would be a four-day trip. How did she explain the absence to her oldest daughter? “I told her the truth,” Shirley said.  

“I don’t want you to die,” her daughter said. She cried, and hugged Shirley, and told her that everything would be OK.  

Shirley got on a plane. Alone. Her husband or family would have come with her, had she asked. But they had to work and care for the kids and anyway, she was ashamed.  

For this story, she asked Paste BN to withhold her last name: “I don't want people finding my social media and being cruel about abortion." 

Under Mississippi’s previous laws, Shirley would also have had to leave the state, said Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund director Laurie Bertram Roberts. But she could have just driven to Memphis, less than three hours away. 

Now a “survivor lives here” sign stands before the family’s house. Shirley sometimes still feels sad, but instead of ashamed, now she is angry. Her state failed her, she said. Doctors in New York told her that if she lived there, she could be treated for cancer while pregnant.  

“Oh my God — it made me hate where I was from for a while,” she said. “Mississippi is behind on a lot of things.”  

Despite her personal convictions, she has never thought abortion should be illegal. “It should be that person's decision. I really don't feel that the government should play a part in anything like that,” she said. 

Politicians don’t understand what women go through, Shirley said.  

“Without women, the world wouldn't spin,” she said. “We take care of everybody. We hold things together. And who hold us together? Who does that for us?” 

Now what?: Mississippi's anti-abortion pregnancy centers won. Now they're preparing for more babies

‘A very emotional time’ 

The morning after Markees Robinson breathed his first breath in the air, Richardson reflected on her work. “Sometimes this is exhilarating and amazing. And then other times it’s so frustrating,” she said.  

The birth “was such an amazing experience.” But down the hall, another of her patients, a teenager, had the opposite outcome. Her baby’s heart had stopped in utero.  

“Not everybody gets to take a baby home,” Richardson said. “I think that's what keeps me motivated to keep practicing.” 

The new abortion restrictions have made a stressful job even more stressful, Richardson said. Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, she was “just doing what was best for mom.” Now, if the pregnancy will prove fatal to the pregnant person, she has to call the hospital attorney.  

When a baby isn’t going to survive — well, that’s the worst. Mississippi’s abortion law makes no exception for fetal nonviability. Neither do the laws in Tennessee, Alabama or Arkansas. Richardson has to wait for the fetus to die, or the mom to go into labor or get dangerously ill.  

That’s not the professional standard of care, Richardson said. And emotionally, it’s rough. She's doing prenatal checks and the pregnant woman is fielding questions about the due date for a baby who will never come home.

“Nobody's thinking about women,” Richardson said. “Nobody's thinking about our well-being or our emotional well-being or our health or our mental state when they make these laws.” 

A lot more of Richardson’s patients are telling her they want their tubes tied.  

They won’t risk getting pregnant again.  

Danielle Dreilinger is an American South storytelling reporter and the author of the book “The Secret History of Home Economics.” You can reach her at ddreilinger@gannett.com or 919/236-3141. Mona Iskander is a "States of America" freelance senior producer based in New York. Andrea Kramar is a senior video producer at Paste BN, currently focusing on the "States of America" series.