LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — Arkansas state leaders met with state healthcare leaders on Wednesday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to discuss maternal healthcare.
According to a study from the Arkansas Department of Health, the Arkansas Maternal Mortality Review Committee found that 92% of maternal deaths from 2018-2020 were ‘potentially preventable’.
The study also illustrated that although pregnancy-associated deaths can happen to women of any race, black women along with women aged 35 and older experienced the highest impact.
Healthcare panelists at the roundtable spoke on a myriad of issues including how healthcare professionals can work as a network to help get women help, how pediatricians can help mothers get the treatment they need, and other issues impacting prenatal and postnatal care.
Lanita White, M.D. and CEO of Community Health Centers of Arkansas, said there are a lot of unique challenges that impact women in rural communities such as transportation issues.
“There may be a clinic near them, but maybe it’s not a walking distance,” White said. “If they don’t have transportation, but [they] have to wait for a family member to bring them or a friend to bring them, [and] it creates a barrier.”
White also noted there is a social stigma that pregnant women could experience,
“People don’t feel like they want to go to the doctor because they don’t want to be judged,” White said. “Especially with our younger women, teenage women, they don’t want to present to the doctor’s office pregnant, or fear that they may be pregnant, or even ask for things like contraception.”
Additionally, White said there’s a need to have a centralized system to share information with women and noted that women should also advocate for themselves.
“Women can absolutely have babies in the state successfully. They can live and their babies can live.” White said. “But we want them to be engaged and we want them to be their biggest advocate. There’s nothing wrong with advocating for yourself.”
William (Sam) Greenfield, M.D. gynecologist at UAMS served on the Arkansas Maternal Mortality Review Committee and noted there are a lot of quality hospitals throughout the state and that maternal mortality rates reflect a lost opportunity to provide optimal care for all patients.
“The maternal mortality rate represents a loss of life of a mother within one year of the end of her pregnancy,” Greenfield said. “There’s another number of maternal morbidity that we have to be concerned about when mom may not have lost her life but may have had a complication or some event that left her scarred after the delivery.”
Greenfield emphasized more effort needs to be made to provide education on resources women have across the state.
“For example, knowing that Community Health Centers can provide care in certain regions, where people may not be aware of the providers,” Greenfield said. “The local health units, providing maternity care in certain regions where patients may not be aware, raising awareness of the opportunities for WIC to provide nutritional support not only to the mothers but to their newborns.”
Watch the full meeting below.
State leaders on the panel:
- Senator John Boozman
- Governor Sarah Sanders
- Congressman French Hill
Healthcare leaders on the panel:
- Jodiane Tritt, Arkansas Hospital Association (moderator)
- Dr. Nirvana Manning, Director of Women Health Service Line, Chairman and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, UAMS; Arkansas Maternal Mortality Review Committee (AMMRC)
- Dr. Lanita S. White, CEO, Community Health Centers of Arkansas
- Dr. Sharmila Makhija, Founding Dean and CEO, Alice L. Walton School of Medicine
- Dr. William (Sam) Greenfield, OBGYN, Arkansas Department of Health; AMMR
