State health officials outline maternal-health strategy emphasizing substance-use treatment, prematurity prevention and new federal TEMA grant

State public‑health officials and community advocates told the Senate Select Committee on Women and Children on Jan. 15 that substance use, prematurity and gaps in postpartum care are the state’s most urgent maternal‑health challenges, and they outlined a multi‑pronged strategy including quality‑improvement work, grant funds and expanded residential treatment capacity for pregnant women.

“Louisiana ranks 5th in maternal mortality,” Dr. Veronica Gillespie Bell, medical director of the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative (LAPQC) and an OBGYN, told the committee. Her presentation to the panel linked the state’s maternal‑mortality data to social drivers of health and to a sustained increase in pregnancy‑associated deaths tied to accidental overdoses. “Accidental overdoses has is the leading cause of pregnancy associated deaths in Louisiana,” Dr. Gillespie Bell said, and she described programs that aim to screen and link pregnant people to treatment during delivery and postpartum care.

LDH described three main avenues of work: the LAPQC’s hospital‑level quality improvement activities (including AIM patient‑safety bundles and breastfeeding initiatives), a maternal health innovation grant program to expand data systems and telehealth, and Louisiana’s selection as one of 15 states to receive the federal Transforming Maternal Health Initiative (TEMA) grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Tangela Womack, assistant secretary for the Office of Women’s Health, said the TEMA award will bring up to $17 million in resources over 10 years and will fund a planning period followed by multi‑year implementation.

LDH officials also described concrete, existing work to address substance use among pregnant people. Karen Stubbs, assistant secretary in the Office of Behavioral Health, outlined residential treatment programs — some funded with a combination of Medicaid and TANF sources — that allow pregnant and postpartum women to remain in residential addiction treatment with their children. Stubbs described facilities such as Meredith’s Place, Restore Recovery in Pineville and Claire’s House (Morgan City) and emphasized the statewide referral role of child‑welfare caseworkers and the facilities’ acceptance of women from across Louisiana.

Community groups and service providers attended and described needs that remain. Kimberly Novack, founder of the Saul’s Light nonprofit, asked legislators to focus on NICU families and on transportation, lodging and telehealth options that help rural parents remain at the bedside of medically fragile newborns. “Fifty percent of families we helped last year were from rural Louisiana,” Novack said, and she urged funding for lodging and family stays near NICUs.

The committee also heard personal testimony about the role of residential treatment and case management. Angela Adkins described how her daughter’s substance use and multiple custody actions culminated in a successful connection to a medically assisted treatment program plus a state‑funded residential placement that allowed reunification with the newborn under grandmother custody. “I brought home a 28‑day‑old newborn,” Adkins said, and she urged more support and expansion of the programs that helped her family.

Senators asked about legislative and regulatory constraints, including billing and bundled‑payment rules that can limit hospitals’ ability to fund extended education or transitional services during a single admission. Committee members also raised broader policy questions about workforce shortages for obstetric providers, barriers to using Medicaid funds for on‑site clinical care in secure settings and the need to expand midwifery and doula care.

Next steps and committee directions: LDH offered to return with more detail on the TEMA implementation plan and to provide the committee with a list of newly opened and planned residential treatment facilities and their capacities. Senators said they will explore options to encourage stronger care coordination and transportation supports for rural families, and they asked LDH to help brief the committee on telehealth pilots and on potential federal waiver pathways for Medicaid funding to cover postpartum mental‑health and substance‑use services.

Why it matters: Louisiana’s maternal‑mortality ranking, rates of prematurity and growth in congenital syphilis and pregnancy‑associated overdoses are driving state efforts to coordinate clinical quality improvement, expand community‑based treatment and secure federal funds to redesign perinatal care pathways.