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For expectant parents considering where to seek maternity care, these 297 facilities on this year's "Best Hospitals for Maternity Care" list from U.S. News & World Report.

Last year on the inaugural list, eight states boasted 10 or more high-performing hospitals. This year, that number rose to a dozen states, with California, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania leading the pack.

There were, however, a handful of states -- Alaska, Mississippi, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and South Dakota -- that did not have hospitals participating in the rankings, while New Mexico, Vermont, and the District of Columbia had no top performers, according to U.S. News.

"When expectant parents are considering their options for welcoming a baby into the world, the 'Best Hospitals for Maternity Care' is designed to help them identify hospitals that excel in delivering babies for uncomplicated pregnancies," said Min Hee Seo, PhD, senior health data scientist at U.S. News, in a statement.

In announcing this year's list, U.S. News said that it evaluated 649 participating hospitals that provide labor and delivery services. Just under 300 hospitals received a high-performing designation.

Methodology included four measures not previously factored into the analysis, including episiotomy rates, vaginal birth after cesarean rates, and whether each hospital met new federal criteria for "birthing-friendly" practices. In addition, this year's methodology rewarded hospitals that tracked and reported the outcomes for patients of different races and ethnicities.

"Identifying racial disparities in maternity care is a vital step toward achieving health equity," Seo said. "The new measures provide expectant parents with many important data points, such as whether hospitals implemented patient safety practices, to assist them in making a decision about where to receive maternity care."

Overall, the methodology was based entirely on objective measures of quality, such as cesarean section rates in lower-risk pregnancies, newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates, and early elective delivery rates, U.S. News said. The publication also noted several limitations to its evaluation of maternity care.

The methodology did not account for social factors, including structural racism, which may influence hospital performance on quality measures, it noted. Moreover, hospitals that participated in the maternity services survey are not representative of all hospitals across the country that provide maternity care. Participating hospitals represented 44% of total annual deliveries nationwide.

"Overall, the hospitals we evaluated tend to have a higher number of deliveries, and are more concentrated in the Northeast U.S. and slightly less concentrated in the South and Midwest, than non-participating hospitals," U.S. News wrote in detailing its methodology. "Because our methodology focuses on uncomplicated pregnancies, results of this analysis are not generalizable to high-risk obstetrics. Other methodologies may be devised in the future to identify hospitals that excel in managing high-risk pregnancies."

Following is a list of states with the highest number of high-performing hospitals, according to this year's list.

States With the Most High-Performing Hospitals

• California: 48
• North Carolina: 21
• Pennsylvania: 20
• New Jersey: 19
• Wisconsin: 15
• Colorado: 14
• Ohio: 14
• Texas: 14
• Illinois: 12
• Virginia: 12
• Michigan: 10
• Minnesota: 10

The full "Best Hospitals for Maternity Care" list is available .

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