Inside Arkansan’s Maternal Health Crisis
There’s a famous saying: “Where you live affects how you live.”
Most of the time this concept is used to explain globalization in World History classes.
But is that always a good thing? What most people don’t realize is that it is devastating for the
mothers who live in places where basic access to quality maternal care is not available.
According to America’s Health Ranking report in 2024, Arkansas ranked 50th in the nation for
maternal health. (LAST state in ranking!) And it would be fair to say not much has changed
since.
Arkansas is facing a serious maternal health crisis! With 35 out of 75 counties
classified as maternal care deserts (areas lacking OB/GYN hospitals and providers), Arkansan
women aren’t able to receive medical attention after their first trimester. Between 2018 and 2021,
Arkansas had one of the highest maternal mortality rates per 100,000 live births: 43.5 deaths.
State review committees stated that 90-92% of these are preventable.
To get into a more deeper analysis of the underlying problem, we need to take a closer
look at the disparities and the challenges of the system. There is a big industrialization and
advancement gap between the rural vs the urban areas in Arkansas. With most of the hospitals
and providers located in the urban main city, most rural women have to suffer through longer
travel times to get basic maternal care. The report states that 27% of rural Arkansas have closed
labor and delivery units. 44% of the remaining hospitals are at a high risk of closing. These
prolonged travel times lead to pregnancy complications that can range from exhaustion to water
breaking during travel to chronic illnesses getting worse during travel.
Another disparity that gets overlooked frequently is the living conditions of different race
groups in rural Arkansas. Black women are 1.2 times as likely to die compared to White women
or any other race women. The maternal mortality rate for Black women is 48.9 deaths per
100,000 live births which is significantly higher than in any other race. Most of the pregnancy
related complications occur due to chronic illnesses such as diabetes or cardiopulmonary
diseases (hypertension is a big one) which are shown to be more prevalent in Black women.
These complications combined with prolonged travel times and racial disparities lead to a long
suffering road for Black women to get maternal care.
In addition to shortages of maternal care services and racial disparities, we also see lack
of financial resources and education. In general, 13.9% of Arkansans reported not being able to
see a doctor in the last 12 months due to the cost of visits or insurance issues. Approximately
25% of working adults completely lack health insurance. There are also financial challenges for
the hospital. Current challenges include rising staffing costs, outmigration of younger residents,
and low birth volume. Furthermore, most of the graduating students do not have a residency
program that offers placement because Arkansas also lacks residency or fellowship programs and
the ones available are already full. This forces most Arkansan providers out of state for jobs.
Some of the other factors never talked about include language barriers, lack of education
and awareness and different social status barriers.
All these factors can contribute to preventable premature deaths and birth
outcomes!
So what can we do?
To help this situation, we all need to work together. It doesn't matter if you’re a provider,
administrator, or a local. We all need to work towards making the situation better for mothers
because a ZIP code shouldn’t determine whether you receive quality maternal care.
It all starts by acknowledging the issue and educating ourselves and others about the
challenges of a pregnancy. We need to not only advance in technology but advance our rural
areas by building more OB/GYN hospitals and having enough residency programs to house the
providers. We all need to start somewhere. So get up, learn and allocate. Fundraising or donating
to women shelters and women hospitals, holding workshops, and taking actions towards the
challenges you see in your community, all contribute to the good and better advancement of
maternal care in Arkansas.
Works Cited
- Joseph, Amanda L., et al. "Visualizing the Maternal Health Journey for Learning Health
Systems: Mixed Methods Combined Experience Approach." Journal of Participatory
Medicine, vol. 18, 2026, pp. 21. ProQuest,
ournals/visualizing-maternal-health-journey-learning/docview/3309233978/se-2,
doi:https://doi.org/10.2196/82944.
- Health Resources and Services Administration. “Arkansas—2024—III.B. Overview of
the State.” Title V Information System, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
6d66.
- “Arkansas Maternal Mortality.” Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care,
- “Report: 44% of Labor and Delivery Units at Rural Arkansas Hospitals at Risk of
Closing.” Arkansas Center for Health Improvement,
ls-at-risk-of-closing/.
- Ananya Dadhich, Bentonville Arkansas, 12th grade, Instagram:
_ananya_dadhich01
