Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announces an advertising campaign for prenatal healthcare at state-run clinics on May 6, 2026 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Behind her are Health Secretary Renee Mallory and Human Services Secretary Janet Mann. | Photo by Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate
By TESS VRBIN | Arkansas Advocate
An advertising campaign went live Wednesday directing pregnant Arkansans to state-run clinics for prenatal health care.
The campaign, which includes 30-second television ads that will begin airing statewide this week, was among the recommendations of a committee Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders formed in 2024 to address the state’s high maternal mortality rate and maternal healthcare deserts. The committee was formed after Sanders said the state wouldn’t expand Medicaid coverage for postpartum care.
Too few Arkansans are aware of the state’s 92 Health Units in all 75 counties, said Health Secretary Renee Mallory, who was on the maternal health strategic committee.
“We want every woman, whether she’s having a happy and easy and smooth pregnancy or feels totally alone and scared, to know that our health units are there to help them,” Sanders said during the Health Department’s third annual free women’s health exposition, the MOM Block Party, at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
Between one-third and half of births in Arkansas per year are covered by Medicaid, said Human Services Secretary Janet Mann, also a member of the maternal health task force and the former state Medicaid director.
Sanders and Mann both touted the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act, a bipartisan 2025 law developed in part from the task force’s recommendations. The law established presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant Arkansans, offered reimbursements for doulas and community health workers, and established pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage for specific treatments.
Presumptive eligibility allows Medicaid coverage before the application process is complete. Since the law went into effect in July, the state has enrolled over 800 pregnant women on Medicaid after they were presumptively eligible, Mann said.
Arkansas is the only state to end postpartum Medicaid coverage at 60 days instead of extending it to 12 months. Sanders and Kristi Putnam, Mann’s predecessor, said in 2024 that this coverage would be “redundant” and “duplicative,” since the state has other insurance coverage options for postpartum low-income Arkansans.
Legislative efforts to establish 12-month postpartum Medicaid coverage failed in 2023 and 2025, with Mann opposing it before a Senate committee last year. On the national level, Medicaid faces hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts over the next decade due to the One Big Beautiful Bill measure enacted last year.
Wednesday’s news conference ended with a preview of two television ads for prenatal care at Health Units, with the tagline “claim your care.”
The campaign launched the same day the predominantly-Republican Legislature wrapped up a special session to cut income taxes. Democrats and community advocates opposing the cuts said the reduction in state revenue came at the expense of needs such as prenatal and postpartum healthcare.
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