09-05-2025
Bentonville nonprofit to take on maternal and child health
NWA nonprofit Heartland Forward is starting a program to improve maternal and child health in Arkansas and across 20 mid-America states, making up the country's heartland.
Why it matters: Arkansas, along with several other states included in the nonprofit's focus, has some of the worst maternal health outcomes and infant mortality rates in the country.
Poor maternal care cost Arkansas $1.8 billion and the U.S. $165 billion in 2020 alone, according to a previous Heartland Forward report.
State of play: The Maternal and Child Health Center for Policy and Practice will serve as a nonpartisan effort to propose changes to improve mother and child health and well-being.
The center's primary focuses will be research, quality care model development, and bringing together people involved in research, policy and philanthropy, Angie Cooper, president and chief operating officer at Heartland Forward, told Axios.
The center will not have its own facility but will operate under Heartland Forward's health and wellness umbrella.
Context: The center is using New Jersey's Nurture NJ initiative as its playbook, Cooper said.
That initiative helped reduce racial disparities in maternal and child care, according to Heartland Forward, helping New Jersey go from No. 47 in maternal mortality to No. 28 over seven years. The state also saw lower infant mortality rates and higher breastfeeding rates.
What they're saying: Poor maternal health outcomes in Arkansas are largely because of a lack of access to care, and rural patients often have to travel far to see their doctors, Cara Osborne, a nurse midwife who will be leading the initiative, told Axios.
The center will look at how to meet more patients where they are and expand access to resources like community health care workers, doulas and midwives, all shown to improve outcomes and are less expensive than doctors.
Osborne said that the plan is to have some proposed policy changes ready for the 2027 legislative session.
The big picture: Maternal health in the U.S. has come under scrutiny after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision ending the right to abortion nationally, with health experts concerned about how near-total abortion bans, like Arkansas', could affect doctors' ability or willingness to treat their patients.
Homicides stemming from intimate partner violence are a top reason women die during and soon after pregnancy. Restrictions around abortion access and divorce during pregnancy — both of which Arkansas has in effect — are associated with higher rates.
Zoom in: Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' newly enacted Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act made several policy changes that maternal health advocates praised, including Medicaid coverage for doula and community health care worker services and presumptive eligibility for Medicaid, meaning pregnant patients can receive prenatal care while they're still in the application process.
Sanders, however, has said she's opposed to extending postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to one year.
What's next: The health of mothers and children are intertwined and cannot be separated, Osborne said.
While the center will first focus on pregnancy and postpartum health, it will eventually expand to child health and well-being up to 8 years old, focusing on issues like cognitive development, preventing infectious disease through vaccination, and early childhood safety.
