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Babies born at healthy weight are less likely to suffer from health and learning problems into adulthood. One of the priorities in the Santa Fe County Health Action Plan is to reduce the number of babies born in Santa Fe County who are low birth weight, which is defined as below 2500 grams, or about five and a half pounds. In 2015, the Community Services Department launched a Low Birth Weight Prevention Initiative and partnered with La Familia and with Las Cumbres to ensure that Santa Fe County babies are born healthy.

The Low Birth Weight Prevention Initiative focuses on women who are most at risk for delivering low birth weight babies, including teenagers, women who are homeless, and those who smoke or use drugs or alcohol. Both La Familia and Las Cumbres began outreach campaigns and efforts to provide early identification, screening, assessment, pre-natal classes, and case management for at-risk pregnant women. One year into the initiative, we are already seeing promising results.

La Familia started a Teen Clinic at Santa Fe Community college, which more and more teenagers are attending for family planning services. Through posters, bus ads and a Facebook page , teenagers are coming to the Teen Clinic and attending prenatal classes. La Familia also initiated prenatal education tailored to reduce risks, and refers women to nutrition services and smoking cessation classes. So far, La Familia has had 134 women give birth under their program, and only nine delivered babies of low birth weight. That is 6.7 percent, much lower than the County’s baseline rate of 9.9 percent.

Las Cumbres tailors their Que Cute! Healthy Baby Program to at-risk pregnant mothers throughout Santa Fe County. Que Cute! emphasizes intensive navigation to needed services, “warm hand-offs” and coordination between partner agencies in order to best meet families’ needs and promote babies being born healthy. Las Cumbres has served 25 women, all very high-risk, including several women contending with homelessness. Ten mothers have given birth, nine to babies of healthy weight. The one baby born underweight was less than an ounce below what is considered healthy.

Santa Fe County Community Services Department provided $250,000 for this first year of the Low Birth Weight Prevention Initiative, and with promising results such as these will continue to fund the initiative into FY 2017.