Northwest Oklahoma is a 'maternity desert'

ENID, Okla. — Teirna Adair was six minutes from the hospital when she gave birth to her daughter in the parking lot of Sunset Plaza.

She and her husband, Eric Cantrell, already had driven almost an hour from their home to deliver their third child. Adair’s contractions, which began earlier in the day, had intensified as she picked up her two children from school to bring them home. She knew it was time to go in.

For weeks before the birth, Adair had been having dreams that she would not make it to the hospital in time to deliver her baby. She reached out to her friends from nursing school for advice on what she would need to deliver her daughter outside of a hospital setting.

“They told me everyone makes it to the hospital, but I still asked. I got towels and tubes and everything else, put it all in my bag,” Adair said. “Just in case.”

Read more: https://www.enidnews.com/news/local_news/northwest-oklahoma-is-a-maternity-desert/article_a30393f2-d5f6-11eb-a114-ef1d6b2c4da1.html