The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently sounded the alarm that a quarter of all pregnant women nationwide were delaying or forgoing entirely prenatal care. But not in Arkansas.

The Natural State was one of six states with improved access to prenatal care, a success that wouldn't be possible without the efforts of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the state Legislature, U.S. Sen. John Boozman, health-care organizations and providers, and community groups across the state.

We all know that Arkansas' rates of infant and maternal mortality are among the highest in the nation. This has been the subject of numerous columns, news stories, and community conversations, and rightfully so. But sometimes the amount of progress that Arkansas is making gets lost in the conversation.

I would like to spend a few moments highlighting what Arkansas is doing right.

Moving the needle on an issue as complicated as this requires the commitment of executive leadership and a clear statewide strategy. Governor Sanders led the charge with her Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies agenda, which included executive orders and a formal multi-agency council, providing focus and accountability at the highest levels of state government. This leadership helped shift maternal health from a collection of disconnected issues into a coordinated public health priority and set measurable goals for improving prenatal care access.

But government can't fix this issue alone. It requires inclusive partnerships and broad stakeholder engagement. The progress we've made so far reflects the power of team collaboration, from grassroots advocates and community health workers to large health-care institutions like the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and legislative champions on both the federal and state level.

Stakeholder meetings ensured that policy, data, and on-the-ground experience informed decisions, kept momentum strong, and helped tailor solutions to Arkansas' rural and unique health landscape.

At the Arkansas Center for Women and Infant's Health at UAMS, we are collaborating with birthing hospitals across the state. Nurses in our Proactive Postpartum Call Center contact new moms not only at UAMS but also at birthing hospitals around the state in the days after delivery to discuss postpartum concerns such as recovery, well-being, infant care, or help with diapers, formula, housing, lactation support and insurance re-enrollment. This targeted intervention reaches out to women during the first six weeks after delivery, when maternal mortality risk is at its highest.

This wasn't a top-down solution. It focused on data-driven policies and people-centered systems reform. Keeping Arkansas families at the center of planning--through robust data analysis, maternal health councils, and a focus on reducing barriers to early care (like presumptive Medicaid coverage)--ensured that strategies were responsive to the real barriers that women throughout our state face. This approach helped reduce late or no prenatal care, even as it trends upward nationwide, by identifying where gaps exist and what resources are most effective.

Arkansas still has work to do in order to make our state the safest place in the country to have a baby, but I'm proud of the progress we've made in a few short years and looking forward to our future.

Nirvana Manning, M.D., is a professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and director of the Center for Women and Infants' Health at UAMS.

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