Sign-On Letter: Supports Not Separation
OVERVIEW
In July 2025, Governor Grisham issued a directive requiring hospitals to place infants under a mandatory 72-hour hold if the infant was born exposed to substance. This directive unleashed chaos and confusion across the New Mexico health care system as the directive was unclear and had no implementation guidelines. It is also in opposition to existing New Mexico child welfare policies and practice. Advocates in New Mexico are concerned for families and patients. This sign on letter expresses deep concern about the directive noting that while it may be well-intentioned it undermines the cornerstone of effective health care: trust between patient and provider.
SIGN-ON LETTER
We are looking for health care provider signers from across the country in solidarity with New Mexicans who believe families deserve support and not separation. Please read the letter, and sign below.
Health care providers dedicate our lives to the wellbeing of families and communities. We have deep concerns about policy directives and proposals that mandate the separation of newborns from their families at birth. These policies undermine the foundation of effective health care: trust between patients and providers.
This summer New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham directed that all newborns exposed to alcohol and drugs be separated from their parents and held in the custody of the deeply overwhelmed New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department (NM CYFD), with no exceptions.
This mandate is dangerous and unlawful. These directives undermine state law designed to provide support and resources to families when they show up for health care. These directives also break both state and federal laws that are supposed to keep Native children with their communities.
When patients—especially pregnant or postpartum parents—fear that being honest with their provider could result in investigation and loss of their child, they are less likely to seek care. This can quickly spiral into poor behavioral health outcomes, as well as dangerous untreated physical health problems for babies and parents. Directives like this turn medical settings into environments where patients are punished rather than cared for, and ultimately keep people from accessing the care they and their newborns need.
Substance use during pregnancy is complex. It often intersects with trauma, poverty, mental health conditions, and barriers to care. Addressing perinatal substance use requires trust-based conversations and patient-centered treatment—not criminalization. When providers are required to separate parents from their newborns, the system is undermining medical best practices and a provider’s ethical obligation to act in the best interest of their patients.
The consequences of broken patient-provider trust are not theoretical. New Mexico’s maternal mortality rate is 1.5 times higher than the rest of the country. We cannot afford to make childbirth more dangerous.
Involvement with child welfare systems—even if temporary—can traumatize families and interrupt practices, like breastfeeding, that improve overall infant outcomes. Separations can cause newborns, children and their parents lifelong emotional and developmental harm. Unwarranted removals disproportionately impact Indigenous, Black, Latine, and low-income families, further exacerbating existing inequities in perinatal and infant health outcomes. Listening to patients in a trusting partnership, with patient centered evidence-based care is the way to improve outcomes, not “one size fits no one” family removals. As providers it is our obligation to always consider the safety of our patients, including newborns. These directives take away our capacity to treat the unique needs of each family in our care.
Earlier this year the New Mexico Legislature passed SB 42, a bipartisan approach that updated child welfare policies relating to substance use and pregnancy. It’s time to put down the harmful separation directives and instead implement New Mexico’s SB 42 with integrity; this is a critical step that demonstrates our commitments to care for families.
We can acknowledge the complexities of these situations and together build accountable state responses that center the lived expertise of families that best understand these circumstances. Together we must build out access to detox and recovery beds available as soon as someone is ready and asking for support. We must create programs where parents can access treatment, while bringing little ones along and having somewhere to call home. Addiction is a health care issue and it should be treated as such—with compassion, dignity, and evidence-based practices.
Sincerely,
If you do not see the form above, click here to sign-on.