-After 14 hours of labor, Detranay Blankenship gave birth to baby Myla at Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital.

Blankenship lives just blocks away from MLK, where her labor was cozy and personalized.

It's the kind of birth that many expecting parents hope for, but widespread cutbacks to maternity care over the last decade in California have made it almost a luxury.

-When I got here, everything was like I said, was unbelievable because I didn't have that type of treatment when I had my kids.

My last one was in 2000.

-It's available only because MLK's leaders are fighting to keep maternity services open.

-It's really important for us to keep our labor and delivery service open because of the community where we're located.

It is one of the most under-resourced communities in Los Angeles County and in the state, and we serve women who have few other sources of care.

-Last year, the hospital ran a $42 million deficit.

A recent $20 million grant from LA County will keep it open until next summer, but hospital administrators say it won't fix their primary funding problem.

Medi-Cal doesn't pay hospitals and doctors enough to keep up.

A quarter of MLK's financial loss from maternity care comes from midwife salaries, because Medi-Cal doesn't reimburse a midwife and an obstetrician working simultaneously, which is how MLK's team works.

Batchlor says the hospital absorbs the additional loss because midwives improve birth outcomes for communities of color.

-You just treat every patient you come in contact with as you would want to be treated, regardless of who they are or where they're coming from.

LA County has lost 17 maternity wards over the last decade, leaving MLK with one of the last in the South LA area.

Nearly 50 maternity wards have closed across California during this same time period.

More than half of those shut down in just the last four years.

For CalMatters, I'm Ana Ibarra.