An invitation · North Arkansas

Upstream MOMentum — reimagining maternal health in North Arkansas.

For the roughly five hundred women who give birth each year at North Arkansas Regional Medical Center — the only hospital delivering babies across five counties.

Begin the story

A mother cradles her newborn at home in the Ozarks — The premise
The best maternal health experience in the country can begin right here.

Look upstream

What if most of what decides a mother's outcome happens outside the exam room?

The test never bought.

The blood pressure never taken.

The prescription never picked up.

The appointment missed for want of a working air conditioner.

The neighbor two doors down, thirty-two weeks pregnant, never met.

The question never asked: how is she sleeping.

The insurance that ends sixty days after the birth.

The month that comes down to food or diapers.

Making mom feel special

She should leave the hospital feeling loved and cared for.

Shoes. Clothes. A candle. Perfume. The small comforts that tell a new mother: this day is about you, too.

Every mom will receive them at childbirth — along with the diapers, the stroller, the car seat, and everything else she needs to bring her baby home. And dads will get a special gift too, because no one should stand beside that moment empty-handed.

The clinical needs

A 4D ultrasound. An advanced hemorrhage cart. More midwives, more nurses.

Let's solve it all. In one place. End to end.

The where

Boone, Carroll, Marion, Newton, Searcy.

Five counties, one hospital that delivers babies, five hundred mothers a year.

The point

Boone County is the proof. It is not the point.

There are hundreds of counties in America that look exactly like this one: one hospital, a long drive, a few hundred mothers a year, and a list of reasons it cannot be fixed. If five hundred mothers in rural Arkansas can have the best maternal health experience in the country, that list of reasons is gone everywhere at once.

The model

Upstream MOMentum will be a 501(c)(3). It is not a charity.

Charity closes a gap once and leaves the gap in place. We are building a catalyst — the operating model for the next generation of health and care in the United States, proven in the smallest, hardest place we could find, precisely so that no one can say it would not work in theirs.

Help shape the work

Who—or what—should be part of this?