‘It’s truly about saving lives’: Delaware hospitals to create plans for pregnant women discharged while in labor

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Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer signed legislation Monday that requires hospitals to create a care plan for patients in labor who are discharged before delivery.

The bill is modeled after the WELLS Act, federal legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del. The act is named after Mercedes Wells, a Black woman from Indiana who gave birth on the side of the road shortly after being discharged from a hospital in November 2025.

Bill sponsors House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown and state Sen. Marie Pinkney, D-Bear, said they are working to improve maternal health in Delaware by reducing the stigma of perinatal mood disorders and shrinking racial disparities for Black mothers and infants.

“It’s important because if we don’t focus on prevention, people die, or there is a traumatic experience that doesn’t need to occur,” Minor-Brown said. “We just want to make sure that women get the help and the support that they deserve and need.”

Emily Williams, a nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health, said she and many women experience depression or anxiety during pregnancy or after giving birth.

“One in five mothers experience a postpartum mood disorder,” she said. “It could be your friend, coworker, sister, cousin or any mother you know and love.”

Williams contacted Josie’s Grace, a Newark-based nonprofit that supports pregnant women and new mothers, for assistance after her daughter’s birth in 2024. She is now a board member.

Founded by Anne DeCaire, the nonprofit offers a fourth-trimester program and other support for pregnant and new mothers, including volunteer baby cuddlers, counseling and meditation.

Federal pandemic funding has supported the program’s existence. The nonprofit “was created to address the amplified mental distress in the perinatal dyad,” its website states. A perinatal dyad is the relationship between the mother and the fetus or newborn during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

DeCaire said she gets more requests to enter the fourth-trimester program than she has spots available, and that she will run out of federal funding at the end of the year.

Blunt Rochester said more programs like Josie’s Gracie are needed.

“We have to continue to find ways to support programs like this and make sure that we have this up and down the state,” she said. “It truly is about saving lives.”