This story is part of our monthly series, Campus Dispatch. Read the rest of the stories in the series here.

For years, Louisiana has had some of the country’s highest rates for maternal mortality and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). According to the World Population Review, as of 2024, the state had the 15th-highest maternal mortality rate, and U.S. News and World Report reported it had the second-highest STI rate. Louisiana’s young adults still face barriers when searching for reproductive and sexual health care.

About a quarter of Louisiana’s approximately 4.7 million residents are young people under the age of 18, women of reproductive age, or both, according to a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights. Despite the high numbers of people in need of OB-GYN care, finding appointments and receiving care is incredibly difficult.

Kelly Baquet is a nurse practitioner who works with Planned Parenthood in New Orleans. She said that patients often lack information on sexual and reproductive health.

“One of the biggest hurdles for people coming to seek care for gynecological complaints, like painful periods, irregular periods, vaginal issues, and birth control is that they have no information on what to do,” Baquet said. “The state of Louisiana doesn’t really have sexual health in the classroom, so a lot of my younger people didn’t know that they had the option, or that something was abnormal.”

A March 2024 report by Lift Louisiana, Physicians for Human Rights, Reproductive Health Impact, and the Center for Reproductive Rights highlights the changing OB-GYN care landscape in a state that already has a crisis of negative maternal health outcomes.

The report, titled “Criminalized Care,” features interviews with both patients and health-care providers for a comprehensive look at the worsening state of pregnancy and maternal care in Louisiana. A significant portion of the study focused on the state’s failing health-care infrastructure as a result of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Louisiana’s increasing restriction of abortion access.

About one-third of Louisiana’s population lives in rural areas that already lack access to efficient OB-GYN care, according to the “Criminalized Care” report. More than 300,000 women in Louisiana live in “contraceptive deserts” where “reasonable access to a health center offering the full range of contraceptive methods” is limited, the report said.

College students generally have a hard time accessing adequate health care as it is. Students like Julianna Jackson, an undergraduate student at Louisiana State University, are working to push back against this norm in the state.

Jackson is an officer for Feminists in Action, a LSU student organization that promotes intersectional feminism and awareness at the university and the surrounding community. She said students often have a hard time accessing OB-GYN care.

“It’s especially hard for students at college who may not be home with their family doctors or know how to get in contact with a doctor,” Jackson said. “Our doctors on campus try their best, [but] they’re just so overrun. We do have an OB-GYN on campus, but it’s extremely hard to get an appointment because they’re so busy.”

Doctors at specialty hospitals—which are often located in more urban parts of the state, like New Orleans—noticed an uptick in referrals from rural hospitals in wake of the Dobbs ruling, the “Criminalized Care” report found. One physician explained that rural hospital lawyers often advise providers to transfer patients experiencing a pregnancy-related emergency, rather than treat them. The increase in patient volume at specific facilities increases existing delays in care, according to the report.

Baquet said that she sees pregnant patients who were advised to wait until 10 or 12 weeks into their pregnancy to be seen by an OB-GYN due to long wait times, and some non-pregnant patients who have had to wait up to five months for appointments with physicians they already see. She added that some of her patients only find out about services at Planned Parenthood by hearing from classmates or community members.

At Planned Parenthood in New Orleans, patients can get same-day care and same-day access to contraceptives. Baquet said that patients are often surprised to find out the wait times are short because of the months-long waits at many other offices.

“Our patients don’t wait six to eight months to come and see us—they can make a same day appointment,” Baquet said. “We often get, ‘Oh, my God, I got care the same day!’ or ‘I didn’t even know y’all existed. I was telling a friend that I couldn’t get to my OB, and somebody told me to come.’”

Feminists in Action partners with Planned Parenthood for events and tabling sessions around campus, and the group works to connect students with resources and education about reproductive and sexual health. Last year, Feminists in Action distributed 1,500 boxes of emergency contraception for free to people around campus.

Going forward, Jackson said the group plans to continue its “no questions asked” free distribution of emergency contraceptives to bridge the gap between health-care access and university students.

“They’re [students] able to reach out to us, and we’re very quick to respond,” Jackson said. “We can give them exactly what they need, or we can point them in the right direction to what they may need.”

The post This LSU Group Combats Louisiana’s Reproductive Health Crisis appeared first on Rewire News Group.