March of Dimes: Half of Arkansas Counties Lack Maternity Care Access
A March of Dimes report found that 78,000 Arkansas women of reproductive age lived in maternity care deserts in 2024, with 33 of 75 counties lacking hospitals with delivery services or obstetric physicians. Nearly 5,000 babies were born to residents of those counties. Arkansas has not adopted the federal option to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months, despite roughly half of state births being Medicaid-covered. The report comes amid uncertainty over Arkansas' ARHOME Medicaid expansion, which the Trump administration has declined to renew, and federal rural Medicaid cuts of $15.5 billion annually that advocates warn could worsen hospital and maternity unit closures.
Arkansas' maternity care shortage directly affects Medicaid beneficiaries who account for half of births statewide, and pending federal changes to the state's expansion program and rural funding threaten to accelerate hospital closures in underserved areas.
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