We also found that postpartum Arkansas mothers consistently have lower follow-up visit rates after an acute behavioral health-related emergency room visit or an inpatient stay compared to all women ages 18-44 in the state, despite the importance of follow-up care to ensure positive health outcomes for mothers and their newborns.

Health Insurance

Having health insurance is key to accessing care in the postpartum period, but for every 100 new Arkansas mothers in 2021, 10 had no healthcare coverage two to four months after giving birth, a statistic we included in our 100 Arkansas Moms infographic series.

Current Maternal Health Recommendations

A state committee on maternal health convened by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a report in September containing numerous recommendations. Sanders has proposed a budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year that includes $13 million in new Medicaid funding to support the panel’s recommendations, one of which is to improve efforts to identify postpartum women who are at risk of losing healthcare coverage and refer those women to other available coverage options.

The federal government allows states to extend pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage up to one year after a woman gives birth. Arkansas is the only state that so far has chosen not to extend pregnancy Medicaid beyond the minimum of 60 days after birth. During the 2023 regular legislative session, Rep. Aaron Pilkington sponsored a bill that sought to lengthen the coverage to one year after birth, but the bill failed to clear a House committee. Sanders has said that rather than extending postpartum Medicaid coverage, the state should do a better job transitioning women to other available coverage options after their Medicaid coverage expires.

Pilkington has filed a bill for the current legislative session that again seeks to extend pregnancy Medicaid coverage to one year after birth. Other bills related to postpartum maternal health that have been filed for the session, which began Monday, Jan. 13, include measures to require Medicaid to cover blood pressure monitors for pregnant and postpartum women and to make paid maternity leave more accessible to public school employees. Many more could be filed in the coming weeks.

Some legislators have also called for expanding the state’s trauma system, which facilitates the transport of trauma patients to the best place for appropriate treatment as quickly as possible, to include severe maternal morbidity events. In a column published in the November-December 2024 issue of the Healthcare Journal of Arkansas, ACHI President and CEO Dr. Joe Thompson endorsed this idea, noting that, “Using the infrastructure already in place for coordination of trauma care to coordinate maternal health care would require a minimal expense compared to the savings Arkansas would see in both healthcare costs and lives.”

For more resources on maternal health in Arkansas, see our topic page.