Kentucky gets “C” for maternal mental health
Just like the U.S., Kentucky earned a C grade in the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health’s latest annual report.
The Policy Center says in its news release that this matters because: “Every year, about one in five moms in the U.S. experience maternal mental health conditions like postpartum depression, and most do not receive the support and treatment they need. When left untreated, these disorders can have lasting impacts on women’s well-being, family stability and children’s development. Untreated maternal mental health disorders are estimated to cost the U.S. $14.2 billion annually.”
Kentucky was among 25 states earning a C grade. No states received As or a failing grade; 11 states earned Bs and 15 states earned Ds.
Kentucky’s score improved again this year, up from a C- in 2025 and a D in both 2024 and 2023, the first year the Policy Center introduced the maternal mental health report cards.
But the Policy Center says it’s still not enough.
“While we applaud the progress states are making, the U.S. is providing mediocre maternal mental health care at best,” Joy Burkhard, CEO of the Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank located in Los Angeles, California, said in the release.
States were graded on 27 measures in four domains: screening and detection, providers and treatment, policy and payment, and parental support, a newly added domain related to paid leave and childcare.
The report says Kentucky’s improved score in the 2026 report comes from adding a perinatal psychiatry consultation program, improved prenatal maternal mental health screenings and improved postpartum MMH screening claim submission rates. The state lost points for no longer meeting the MMH prescriber ratio (three per 5,000 births).
Kentucky was a top performer in nine of the 27 measures, with most of them in the policy and payment domain. They are:
- Having a maternal mental health (MMH) prenatal screening rate above 10%;
- Having a perinatal psychiatry consultation program;
- Having a state perinatal quality collaborative that prioritizes MMH;
- Having a state-sanctioned MMH task force or commission;
- Providing Medicaid reimbursement for group parenting programs without requiring a child diagnosis;
- Having providers who submit postpartum MMH screening claims to private insurers among at least 1% of patients;
- Having providers submit prenatal treatment claims to private insurers for at least 10% of patients;
- Submitting postpartum treatment claims to private insurers for at least 10% of patients;
- Having childcare income eligibility limit at greater than or equal to 85% of the state median income
However, Kentucky failed to meet three of the four screening and detection measures, five of the six provider and treatment measures, three of the 12 policy and payment measures, and only 0.5 stars on a 5-star scale for one of the six parental support measures.
The Policy Center offers a Maternal Mental Health Roadmap to help states improve their scores, which largely focus on efforts to increase access to MMH care, screenings, policies to improve MMH and improvements to parental supports.
“The Maternal Mental Health report cards serve as a guide for states to take action and provide families with the support they need and deserve,” Caitlin Murphy, research scientist at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, said in the release.