Europe offers clues for solving America's maternal mortality crisis

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Midwife Jennie Joseph touched Husna Mixon’s pregnant belly, turned to the 7-year-old boy in the room with them and asked: “Want to help me check the baby?”

With his small hand on hers, Joseph used a fetal monitor to find a heartbeat. “I hear it!” he said. A quick, steady thumping filled the room.

It was a full-circle moment for the midwife and patient, who first met when Mixon was an uninsured teenager seeking prenatal care halfway through her pregnancy with the little boy. Joseph has been on a decades-long mission to usher patients like Mixon safely into parenthood through a nonprofit that relies on best practices she learned in Europe, a place that experts say offers answers to an American crisis.

“I consider maternal health to be in a state of emergency here,” said Joseph, a British immigrant. “It’s more than frustrating. It’s criminal.”