Early, high-quality prenatal care is critical to reducing risks for complications of pregnancy or birth and improving birth outcomes.

In 2017, 67% of births were to women who began prenatal care early, up from 56% in 2014. Despite this improvement, Arkansas was last in the nation on this indicator and 8 percentage points lower than the national rate, at 75%. Since 2014, rates declined for non-Hispanic, black and white births; rates were flat, however, for Asian and Hispanic births.

Within the state, the lowest rates were in Sebastian, Lee and Searcy counties (all at or below 55%), while the highest were Cleveland and White counties (both at 76%).

National data is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). State and county data are from the Arkansas Department of Health. The CDC and Arkansas identify individuals by their race (white, black, etc.) separately from their ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic). So the totals for these categories cannot be added together, as people show up in both a racial and ethnic group. Due to Arkansas' change to a new birth certificate form in 2014 (the 2003 U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth) used to collect this information, prior years of data are not comparable and excluded from the charts above. Aggregate national numbers for 2014 exclude Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Rhode Island is included in 2015, and all states are included in 2016.