Rural Arkansans face increasingly long drives to hospitals that deliver babies as more labor and delivery units have closed due to financial strain, according to new data from the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.
ACHI, a nonpartisan health research and advocacy center, found that 29% of pregnant Arkansans traveled more than 30 minutes and 8% traveled more than an hour to give birth in 2024. The longer it takes to get to a delivering hospital, the higher the risk of health problems for mothers and newborns, according to a 2022 study from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The median drive time from Arkansans’ homes to delivering hospitals remained at 16 minutes between 2022 and 2024, but residents of some counties saw spikes of 10 minutes or more…