In Central Texas, access to maternal health care can be limited, leaving many women without quality or easily accessible care during pregnancy, childbirth and the first years of childcare, according to St. David’s Foundation officials.
The foundation announced the awarding of four grants totaling $2.04 million to Hays County organizations providing perinatal care on April 13.
The details
In 2020, the organization evaluated how to provide a comprehensive range of care and support that included prenatal care, access to child care, access to mental health services and social and emotional support to promote better birth outcomes.
The foundation launched a new strategic plan in 2025 that provided grant funding to 10 Travis County organizations, where the foundation is based.
“One thing that we noticed is that we were funding organizations that we had made a lot of investment in,” Levack said. “We saw that there was still a lot of really compelling work that we could fund in those rural areas. We were really excited to go back and find a way to support those organizations in this latest focus on our rural counties.”
In addition to the four organizations servicing Hays County, five additional organizations providing perinatal care in Central Texas received grant funding from the St. David’s Foundation.
CommuniCare Health Centers
CommuniCare Health Centers will use the St. David’s Foundation grant funds to expand its services in rural Hays County, said Jake Reyna-Casanova, grants and patient advocacy manager.
The organization’s centering project brings pregnant women with similar due dates from higher-risk populations, such as African American and Hispanic women, together for prenatal visits and health assessments.
“This grant opportunity allows us to really bring the centering and group prenatal services to Hays County,” Reyna-Casanova said.
Community Action Inc. of Central Texas
Community Action Inc. of Central Texas features a home visiting team that offers evidence-based curriculum on how to support healthy pregnancies, parenting and early development in the community for families with children under the age of 5, said Mary Bryant, interim home visiting director.
“The families receive prenatal and pregnancy health support,” Bryant said.
The organization serves Hays County and will use the grant funding to expand its current service of Caldwell County into the more rural areas.
HEAL Alliance
HEAL Alliance, an organization based in Bastrop that serves Hays County, is dedicated to helping heal historical trauma caused by racial inequalities, including challenges surrounding access to health care, quality education and mental health support, founder and Chief Strategist Krystal Grimes said.
The grant funds will support new cohorts of the organization’s Rural Leadership Institute, which provides training to pregnant women to understand ancestral practices and build a tight network. Participants will also receive funding to support themselves.
Hill Country Women’s Health Collective
The Hill Country Women’s Health Collective is a free, midwife-run women’s clinic in the Hill Country servicing a large number of uninsured and low-income patients.
While the organization has nurse practitioners and a doctor on staff, the midwifery model of care is crucial to the service, Executive Director Oona Mekas said. The St. David’s Foundation grant will fund the payment of new providers, expanded ultrasound services and an expanded Spanish language interpreter pool, and allow low-risk pregnancy patients to give birth at home.
Current situation
Limits on access to prenatal care exist across the state and in the region. In 2024, 25.6% of expecting mothers in Hays County did not receive prenatal care in the first trimester of their pregnancy, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
“The organizations receiving grants play a critical role in growing a larger, more impactful maternal health equity ecosystem that truly meets the needs of rural communities,” said Christina Thompson, St. David’s Foundation director of communications.
A health equity issue exists in women’s health, particularly regarding maternal mortality. Maternal mortality rates are significantly higher for Black women than white women, said Andrew Levack, St. David’s Foundation senior program officer.
“We are an organization that fundamentally believes in addressing and promoting health equity,” Levack said. “We’ve got a long, historic focus on ways to address these health disparities that women of color have been experiencing in Central Texas, around poor birth outcomes.”
From 2020 to 2021, Texas saw an increase in severe maternal morbidity, or SMM, according to the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee and Department of State Health Services Joint Biennial Report 2024.
“SMM is the unintended outcome of labor and delivery that results in significant consequences to a mother’s health,” according to the report.
The SMM rate in 2021 was 85.5 cases per 10,000 delivery hospitalizations, 12.8 cases more than in 2020, according to the report. Non-Hispanic Black women face the highest SMM rate of all demographics.
The impact
St. David’s Foundation officials hope the grant awards will increase access to maternal health services in Hays County and the Central Texas area by investing in local organizations.
“What we’re trying to do in Hays County, and throughout our five-county area, is build an ecosystem that provides a lot of support to improve health outcomes,” Levack said.
It is essential for the foundation to work with community organizations, clinics, policy organizations and mental health service providers to address the inequity of maternal health outcomes, Levack said.
The organizations awarded funds by the St. David’s Foundation will receive their grants over the next two years to support maternal health services in the more rural areas of Central Texas. Approximately 30% of Hays County is rural, while around 5% of Travis County is rural, according to Texas Counties Deliver.
