Nearly half of all U.S. hospitals no longer deliver babies, and the most recent wave of closures was concentrated in cities rather than the countryside. Of the 67 hospitals that lost obstetric services between 2023 and 2024, 42 were urban, and 25 were rural, according to a report released this month by the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center.
That split matters because obstetric closures have been reported for years as a rural story, and the underlying rural numbers remain worse. But the trend line has moved into metropolitan areas. In 2010, urban hospitals in only two states were majority without obstetric services. By 2024, that was true of urban hospitals in 15 states.
