Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America gives Arkansas and Kentucky $10 million each for maternal care
The grants, announced Oct. 1 in Bentonville, are the first state awards from the $100 million the Walton-founded campaign committed in September. Each state gets its share over five years for midwives, doulas, home visits and postpartum care.
Bentonville. Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, the maternal health campaign Olivia Walton founded in May, said on Oct. 1 that it will give Arkansas and Kentucky $10 million each over five years. Ms. Walton announced the grants onstage at the Heartland Summit in Bentonville with Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, a Republican, and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat.
They are the campaign's first state-level investments and come out of the initial $100 million commitment it announced on Sept. 10, which was to pay for state matching grants, partnerships and the infrastructure to spread what works. The campaign's goal is to cut the U.S. maternal death rate in half in five years. Its release calls it an independent nonprofit; the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette describes it as part of Heartland Forward, a Walton family nonprofit in Bentonville.
Money for the states to spend
The grants go to the two state governments. Cara Osborne, a nurse midwife who co-founded the campaign, told the Democrat-Gazette that it is working directly with both so the money goes where each state knows it is needed. The release names no state agency and describes no application.
Over the five years, according to the release, the money will support state-led efforts to add midwives, doulas, community health workers and other maternal health professionals; strengthen maternal health data and quality improvement, through systems such as the HHS Perinatal Improvement Collaborative; widen home visiting during pregnancy and after birth; and expand postpartum care, including mental health services.
Ms. Osborne said the campaign is interested in home visits in the months after birth and named programs of Save the Children, Parents as Teachers and Family Connects International as promising models. She said it wants the collaborative, which collects data in 220 hospitals nationwide, to reach every birthing facility in both states, though each hospital will decide whether to join.
Why Arkansas and Kentucky
The release puts Arkansas's maternal mortality rate at 35.3 deaths per 100,000 births and Kentucky's at 31.4, 38th of 48 states. In both, nearly half of all counties are maternity care deserts, it says. Ms. Osborne said both states already work with the campaign and have passed broad maternal health laws: Kentucky in April 2024 and Arkansas in February 2025, the Democrat-Gazette reported.
“The best maternal health policy is one that reaches moms before there's a crisis. That means putting more providers in communities that need them, strengthening prenatal and postpartum care, and making sure distance isn't a barrier to getting help.”
Ms. Osborne told Talk Business & Politics that the campaign has not decided whether it will make more grants to states or fund programs across several states or regions.
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