Last week, several members attended a Maternal Health Roundtable at UAMS. The roundtable included Arkansas medical professionals discussing maternal health alongside Governor Sanders, Senator John Boozman, and Congressman French Hill.
Arkansas faces one of the nation's highest maternal mortality rates, prompting discussions on improving access to maternal care in rural areas, especially with only 35 hospitals in the state offering active labor and delivery units.
Addressing maternal health has been a key focus for the Arkansas General Assembly, notably through Act 829 of 2019 establishing the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, aiming to pinpoint prevention strategies by examining pregnancy-associated deaths.
The Committee's latest report highlighted 100 pregnancy-associated deaths out of 108,517 live births between 2018 and 2020, underscoring disparities among minorities and identifying cardiomyopathy, cardiovascular conditions, and hypertensive disorders as top underlying causes.
In 2023, we addressed maternal health with the passage of Act 562, Act 581 and Act 553.