ARKANSAS, USA — Dr. Nirvana Manning said that since she began working as an OB-GYN at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock almost two decades ago, a troubling trend has emerged: More women are coming to the hospital with high-risk pregnancies.
“I have practiced at UAMS now for 16 years and the acuity and the illness that we have seen has taken a straight trajectory up over that time,” Manning said. “The comorbidities that are coming in — the obesity, the chronic hypertension, the diabetes — lots of these things, in a perfect world, you would have preventive care prior to pregnancy.”
Read more about Arkansas' "maternal deserts" as labor & delivery units close across the state.
Arkansas ranks among the top in the nation for maternal and infant deaths, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. In 2021, Arkansas had the second-highest infant mortality rate in the country with 8.59 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Mississippi had the highest with 9.39 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021. Nationally, the rate was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.
To read more about infant and maternal death rates, our business partner Arkansas Business has the full story here.
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