For more than a century, babies were born at Hamilton Hospital in Olney, Texas.

Then one day, they weren’t.

In this episode of Better Odds, we meet Dr. Chantel Taylor, the FM OB who delivered the hospital’s final baby before its labor and delivery unit closed. For families across the region, the closure meant that one of life’s most predictable emergencies — childbirth — suddenly required a much longer drive.

And Olney is far from alone.

Across the United States, maternity wards are disappearing from rural communities. More than one-third of U.S. counties have no birthing facility or obstetric clinician, leaving millions of women living in what researchers call maternity care deserts.