Twelve maternity units have closed since 2015. As Hannah Pingree calls for a moratorium, her six years inside the Mills administration — along with Maine’s spending on reproductive health and its troubled child-welfare record — are coming under new scrutiny.
For generations of families in Lincoln County, having a baby could begin and end close to home.
That is about to change.
On Thursday, MaineHealth’s Board of Trustees voted to close the labor and delivery unit at Lincoln Hospital in Damariscotta, ending months of uncertainty, community opposition and pleas to preserve one of the increasingly scarce places in rural Maine where women can deliver their babies.
The unit is scheduled to close Dec. 18.
After that, expectant mothers who once counted on their community hospital will have to look elsewhere, with deliveries expected to shift primarily to MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick.
Lincoln isn’t an isolated case.
Its closure will mark the 12th Maine maternity unit to shut down since 2015, leaving fewer than half of the state’s 34 hospitals with a place to deliver a baby.
The disappearing maternity wards have become one of the starkest signs of Maine’s rural health-care crisis.
They have also become a campaign issue.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree has emerged as a vocal critic of the closures, calling for a statewide moratorium and saying Maine cannot afford to lose another labor and delivery unit.
But Pingree isn’t entering the debate as a political newcomer looking in from the outside.
For more than six years, she was one of Gov. Janet Mills’ senior policy officials.
And her call to protect the places where Maine children are born comes as her own record — and that of the administration in which she served, presents voters with a complicated picture of Maine’s priorities surrounding mothers and children.
Pingree is endorsed by Planned Parenthood’s political arm. She has pledged to protect abortion access and supports putting reproductive rights into Maine’s Constitution.
The Mills administration has directed millions of dollars toward reproductive-health and family-planning providers, including organizations that perform abortions.
Maine recorded 11,374 abortions between 2021 and 2025, with annual abortions increasing nearly 27 percent over that period.
And during the first six years of the Mills administration, 155 child fatalities were recorded under Maine DHHS’s broad child-welfare reporting criteria.
None of those facts, individually, explains why maternity wards are closing.
Together, however, they raise a larger question that Maine’s next governor will inherit:
What does it mean for state government to say it is protecting Maine’s mothers and children, and where has Augusta been putting its money, attention and political capital while the infrastructure for delivering babies disappears?
‘We Cannot Lose One More’
Pingree traveled to Damariscotta on July 24, joining members of the Miles Delivers Action Coalition and calling on MaineHealth to reverse course.
She also proposed a statewide moratorium on further labor and delivery closures until Maine’s next governor takes office.
“I had my own kids in rural Maine. I know what it means to count on a hospital being there when you need it, and I know what a community loses when it isn’t,” Pingree said.
“This isn’t a hard call. MaineHealth should keep Lincoln’s doors open,” she added. “This has to be about the health of our moms and babies and providing the basic services families need to stay in our communities.”
Pingree said Maine needs time to develop a comprehensive strategy for preserving maternity care.
“We cannot lose one more labor and delivery unit in the interim,” she said.
MaineHealth ultimately disagreed.
Less than two weeks later, its board voted to close Lincoln’s unit.
Twelve Closures … And a Shrinking Map for Maine Mothers
The problem extends far beyond Damariscotta.
Maine has steadily lost hospital-based maternity services for more than a decade, with rural communities bearing much of the impact.
The pace has accelerated.
Waldo Hospital in Belfast ended deliveries in 2025.
Houlton Regional Hospital closed its labor and delivery unit.
Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville stopped maternity services before the hospital itself closed.
Mount Desert Island Hospital also ended birthing services.
Those closures followed earlier losses at hospitals serving communities including Fort Kent, Calais, Bridgton, Rumford and Lewiston.
With Lincoln joining the list, 12 Maine maternity units will have disappeared since 2015.
For a state with large rural regions, the consequences are measured in more than hospital balance sheets.
They are measured in miles.
Research by The Maine Monitor found that rural Mainers whose nearest hospital no longer offers birthing services were traveling an average of approximately 45 minutes one way to reach a hospital that does.
High-risk pregnancies can require considerably longer trips to Bangor, Portland or, in unusual circumstances, Boston.
In Maine, distance also comes with another variable that doesn’t appear neatly on a financial statement: winter.
A 45- or 90-minute drive is one thing on a July afternoon.
It can be something entirely different during a February snowstorm when a woman is in active labor.
Why Are the Units Closing?
There is no honest way to examine Maine’s maternity crisis without acknowledging the difficult economics confronting hospitals.
Birth rates have fallen.
Rural hospitals struggle to recruit and retain obstetricians, nurses, anesthesiology staff and other specialists.
A labor and delivery unit cannot simply unlock its doors when a woman arrives.
Hospitals must maintain specialized clinical capabilities around the clock — even when relatively few babies are being delivered.
MaineHealth has maintained that its Lincoln decision is fundamentally about its ability to reliably provide the staffing necessary for safe care.
Those concerns are real.
And there is no evidence that Maine’s spending on Planned Parenthood or other reproductive-health organizations caused Lincoln Hospital or any other hospital to close its maternity unit.
But that doesn’t end the public-policy discussion.
It begins one.
Because Augusta has demonstrated that when certain parts of Maine’s reproductive-health system face financial threats, state government is willing to intervene.
Millions for Reproductive Health
When Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Maine Family Planning faced the loss of federal funding, Mills responded.
In January, Mills proposed $2.25 million in additional state support for the two organizations to offset federal funding restrictions.
That came after Maine had already allocated approximately $6 million in state funding for reproductive-health providers through the previous biennial budget.
The supplemental budget subsequently approved by lawmakers included millions more for reproductive-health and family-planning providers, including provisions allowing state dollars to replace certain lost federal funding.
Those appropriations should not be described as millions of dollars spent directly on abortions.
That would be inaccurate.
Planned Parenthood and Maine Family Planning provide contraception, cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment and other medical services in addition to providing abortions.
But the state’s willingness to step in financially nevertheless presents an unavoidable comparison as rural hospitals struggle to maintain another component of reproductive health care: delivering babies.
The question is not whether one caused the other.
The question is:
How much has Maine government been willing to spend specifically to prevent labor and delivery units from closing?
The Maine Wire reviewed publicly available information about state health-care spending but has not identified a comparable dedicated state initiative specifically designed to prevent individual maternity units from closing.
That does not mean Maine provides no financial support benefiting maternity care. Hospitals receive state and federal money through numerous programs, including MaineCare reimbursement and broader hospital-support programs.
But the distinction matters.
When federal funding for reproductive-health providers was threatened, Augusta responded with identifiable funding specifically intended to keep those providers operating.
When maternity units began disappearing, the response has been considerably less straightforward.
$190 Million for Rural Health… But What About Delivering Babies?
Maine now has an extraordinary opportunity to address rural health care through a federal program worth approximately $190 million in its first year.
The Rural Health Transformation Program is designed to improve access, strengthen the health-care workforce and stabilize rural health systems.
Maine’s initial plans include $30 million for electronic medical-record modernization, $28.5 million for alternative payment models and $30 million aimed at hospital efficiency, financial stability and long-term sustainability.
That money could strengthen hospitals that are under tremendous financial pressure.
But the state’s published program does not identify preservation of labor and delivery units as a standalone funding category.
That leaves an important question for the Mills administration and Maine’s next governor:
How much of Maine’s enormous rural-health investment will actually keep expectant mothers from having to drive farther to give birth?
11,374 Abortions in Five Years
Maine’s abortion statistics provide another piece of the state’s changing reproductive-health landscape.
According to annual figures previously reviewed from Maine’s reporting system, abortions performed in the state totaled:
2021 — 1,915
2022 — 2,225
2023 — 2,502
2024 — 2,305
2025 — 2,427
That is 11,374 abortions over five years.
The annual total increased from 1,915 in 2021 to 2,427 in 2025, an increase of approximately 27 percent.
The numbers represent abortions occurring in Maine, not exclusively abortions obtained by Maine residents.
In 2025, however, approximately 93 percent were reported as involving Maine residents.
Medication abortions accounted for most of the 2025 total.
Again, those numbers did not cause maternity wards to close.
But they form part of a broader policy debate about what Maine means by “reproductive health care,” where taxpayer money goes and which services state government is prepared to intervene to preserve.
That debate becomes particularly relevant when considering the political position of the candidate now demanding action to save Maine’s birthing centers.
Planned Parenthood Backs Pingree
Two days before Pingree appeared in Damariscotta calling for action to protect Lincoln Hospital, Planned Parenthood Maine Action PAC announced its endorsement of her gubernatorial campaign.
The timing produced an unusual political juxtaposition.
Pingree was campaigning to preserve a hospital unit dedicated to delivering babies while simultaneously accepting the support of one of Maine’s most prominent abortion-rights organizations.
But labels such as “pro-life” and “pro-choice” aren’t necessary to understand Pingree’s position.
Her record speaks for itself.
Pingree has pledged to defend abortion access in Maine and supports enshrining reproductive rights in the Maine Constitution.
She has also indicated she would work to protect reproductive-health providers when federal funding is withdrawn.
Planned Parenthood’s political organization endorsed her because it believes she will continue those policies as governor.
That leaves voters to decide whether Pingree’s positions are contradictory or components of the same broader view of reproductive health.
But it also makes her criticism of Maine’s disappearing maternity wards worthy of closer scrutiny.
Because Pingree had a seat inside the administration while many of Maine’s broader problems affecting children were unfolding.
155 Child Fatalities…And an Important Distinction
One number demands particular care.
Legislative testimony citing Maine DHHS’s child-fatality dashboard reported 155 child fatalities from 2019 through 2024 under the state’s reporting criteria.
The number is striking.
It also can easily be misrepresented.
It does not mean 155 children died while physically in DHHS custody.
DHHS uses a considerably broader definition.
Its reporting includes child deaths ruled homicides regardless of previous child-protective involvement; deaths associated with an Office of Child and Family Services finding of abuse or neglect; and deaths involving children who had previous child-protective history.
That last category can include natural deaths, accidents, suicides and other causes.
DHHS separately told lawmakers in 2025 that 13 children had died while actually in department custody during the preceding 10 years, with more than half dying from natural causes.
None of those 13 deaths, according to DHHS, was a homicide or involved an inflicted injury.
That distinction matters.
But it does not erase the broader child-welfare crisis that has repeatedly confronted the Mills administration.
A System Under Scrutiny
Maine’s child-protection system has endured years of investigations, legislative hearings and public outrage over the deaths of children whose families had contact with the state.
The issue exploded into public view again in 2021 after several child deaths in a matter of weeks.
Among them was 3-year-old Maddox Williams, whose death became one of the most recognizable symbols of Maine’s child-welfare failures.
The Mills administration subsequently brought in Casey Family Programs to conduct an outside review.
Lawmakers also fought DHHS for access to confidential records as they sought to understand what state officials knew, what caseworkers did and whether some deaths could have been prevented.
Those battles unfolded while Pingree occupied one of the most significant policy positions in the Mills administration.
Pingree Wasn’t Running DHHS. She Wasn’t an Outsider Either.
This distinction is equally important.
Pingree was not the DHHS commissioner.
She did not supervise individual child-protective investigations.
She did not determine whether a child should be removed from a home.
Attributing individual child deaths to Pingree would therefore go beyond the evidence.
But portraying her as detached from the Mills administration’s policies affecting children would be equally misleading.
Mills appointed Pingree in January 2019 to lead what became the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.
She remained in that senior administration position until May 2025.
Her office worked across departments on major policy priorities, including early-childhood and child-care issues.
It also coordinated the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet.
That cabinet brings together the commissioners of DHHS, Education, Labor, Public Safety and Corrections to coordinate government policies and programs affecting Maine children and families.
When Pingree left state government, Mills specifically praised her for “reinvigorating the Children’s Cabinet.”
That makes Pingree’s record relevant as she campaigns to become Maine’s next governor on promises to address problems affecting mothers and children.
She isn’t merely asking voters to consider what she would do in Augusta.
Voters can also examine what happened while she was already there.
The Question for Pingree
The Maine Wire has reached out to the Hannah Pingree campaign seeking comment on the issues raised in this report, including her record in the Mills administration and her proposal to stop additional maternity-unit closures.
The Maine Wire also asked what Pingree did during her more than six years in the Mills administration to prevent the loss of labor and delivery services, what responsibility she believes the state bears for preserving rural maternity care, and how she reconciles her call for government intervention to save maternity units with her support for continued state assistance to reproductive-health organizations that provide abortions.
The Maine Wire further asked about her role coordinating policy involving Maine children through the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet and what responsibility, if any, she believes the cabinet bears for problems within Maine’s child-welfare system during her tenure.
This article will be updated if the Pingree campaign responds.
Those answers matter because Pingree has placed herself squarely in the middle of the maternity-care debate.
But so does another set of answers from the Mills administration.
How much state money since 2019 has been specifically dedicated to preventing maternity units from closing?
Which hospitals received it?
Did the state offer direct assistance to Lincoln Hospital intended specifically to preserve labor and delivery?
And, as Maine begins spending $190 million in federal rural-health money, how much will be directed specifically toward keeping Maine’s remaining maternity wards open?
Those are questions worth answering regardless of party.
The Last Baby at Lincoln
Politics can make health-care debates abstract.
Budgets become millions and billions.
Hospitals become dots on maps.
Abortion becomes a partisan dividing line.
Child-welfare failures become statistics.
But childbirth isn’t abstract for the woman experiencing it.
When Lincoln’s maternity unit closes Dec. 18, the question facing an expectant mother in Lincoln County won’t be about a budget line in Augusta or a campaign endorsement in Portland.
It will be much simpler.
Where do I go now?
For generations of Maine families, the answer was their community hospital.
In Damariscotta, that answer now has an expiration date.
And as Hannah Pingree campaigns to lead Maine by promising that the state cannot afford to lose another place where its children are born, voters have another question to consider:
What did Maine’s leaders do while those places were disappearing?
Hanna Pingree calls for a statewide moratorium on common sense , fiscal responsibility , individual responsibility , and economic viability .
Hanna Pingree is a Democrat Socialist Tool, who will destroy what is left of the State of Maine after eight years of the Janet Mills disaster .
Time to wake up Maine .
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THIS STATE .
Yeah everybody in the Mills administration gets a Rainbow participation trophy!
While normal people will be saying what a train wreck the Mills administration was for Maine people.
Maybe Hanna will propose a high speed solar powered passenger train service from Damariscotta to Brunswick so people won’t have to drive all the way to Brunswick to have kids .
We could have “a study “ ….spend 100 million ….get a train like Gavin Newsome has …..something green ….
How bout that Hanna ?
Hanna Pingree is a spoiled brat rich kid who’s never done a real days work in her entire life .
If Maine elects her governor , I’m leaving .
When my generation was born, I believe ALL MDs were trained in Med School to be able to handle ALL routine medical problems including attending to the routine birth of a baby. How and why have we gotten to the point where only pediatrician specialists can or will deliver babies ? Why are tax payers dollars via med school subsidies being spent on training MDs who can’t or won’t attend to the birth of a baby ?? This seems to be the root cause of the problem here unless of course there are zero MDs on duty or on standby at home for any given hospital 24 hours a day. If a baby is to be born, call in an MD who may be on standby from home or assign one who is already on duty in the hospital. What ta hexx is going on with the medical community in the USA, get these MDs back doing what they were trained to do in med school Vs being off duty 90% of the time !!
The Democratic platform has been population control for the working class, while importing new Americans at cheaper rates.
DNC PLATFORM
All forms of population reduction not addition. Why are we so shocked the birth-rate is so low amongst young people? (myself included!) The DNC platform is taught in public schools, so why wouldn’t my generation believe, and regurgitate that doctrine? From a young age, children are not brought up by there parents, but in broken institutions where self suicidal ideology’s are normalized by middle aged white women with no children of there own.
Brought to you by the Democratic communist party
It seems as if A LOT of the small-town hospitals and healthcare clinics that have closed (or scaled back services) are located in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. You know, the district that voted AGAINST Mills, and that voted FOR Trump and Lepage.
Or is that just an AMAZING coincidence?!
1 or 2 births a month doesn’t pay for costs of compliance of state and federal regulations for a maternity ward. You also have to pay the staff and doctors. Its a no win for anyone. The ER will still deliver a baby. But its not as good of care.