SF’s infants are not getting critical care

The Santa Fe Baby Fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, whose mission is to “make noise for babies,” recently released a report describing the critical and largely unnoticed shortage of infant care in Santa Fe, and indeed across New Mexico (“A Critical Shortage: Infant Care in Santa Fe”). With highquality child care centers able to accommodate only approximately 7 percent of babies born in Santa Fe, families face waiting lists 50 names deep. Working families are left to navigate on their own an unregulated system of infant care that often cannot provide them with a combination of affordability, access, language, culture and safety all in the same place. While media and policy attention goes to the benefits of good pre-K programs, which are also vitally needed in our state, the lack of care for younger children goes mostly unnoticed.

In our report, we offer many suggestions for how to foster more opportunities for infant care. Part of the solution depends on ensuring that community-based child care centers can continue to offer pre-K programs, as well as care to younger children. It is precisely by offering pre-, which generates more revenue, that these centers are then able to subsidize their smaller infant classes.

The early months and years of a child’s life represent a vital period of brain development that lays the foundation for a lifetime of success. A coordinated system at the state level focused on the entirety of early childhood will enable New Mexico to target resources to children when they need it most. Rigorous scientific research from Nobel prize-winning economists and neurologists confirms what we all know to be true: When babies are given stable, nurturing and stimulating care from loving and informed caregivers, they thrive and the community at large benefits, as well. Together, let’s make New Mexico a great place for babies to grow. WILLIAM SMITH, PRESIDENT & CEO, SANTA FE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SANTA FE