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Why We Think Babies

It’s time to make the potential of every baby a national priority. See what families across the country say they need to thrive and share your story. What would you want our elected leaders to know about raising babies and toddlers today or the challenges of providing families with young children the support they need?

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Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health

“We talk so much in obstetrics about the whole person approach to childbirth, and I don’t know that we are looking to the whole child approach when it comes to health and helping you find a strategy that works for you and your family.“

– Lorna Harris-Fisher (MA)

Lorna’s son, Jude, was born during the pandemic, and like many families, she describes having “very little support.” After she and her partner realized their toddler had severe sleep and feeding issues, their family had to wait five months before seeing a professional. Reflecting upon the experience today, Lorna wishes she could have known about and accessed services sooner.

Lorna experienced a “lack of concern/urgency/brush-off” from doctors when she brought up mental health concerns regarding her first child, including severe night terrors and eating issues. In her gut, she knew that her son’s challenges were more than “typical toddler behavior.”

Lorna’s unwavering commitment to finding services for her children fuels her advocacy efforts, including championing comprehensive child care reform, ensuring equitable access to healthcare resources, and including infant and early childhood mental health in a “whole child” approach to care.

As an OBGYN administrator, Lorna reflected on some of the differences between prenatal care and pediatric care: “We talk so much in obstetrics about the whole person approach to childbirth, and I don’t know that we are looking to the whole child approach when it comes to health and helping you find a strategy that works for you and your family.”

Specifically, Lorna would like to see more mental health professionals partnering with pediatricians’ offices to help identify anxiety and other social-emotional issues that can be hard to diagnose and treat in young children.

“If I can inspire somebody else to raise the flag and say it’s not okay, this is not working, and empower somebody else to say I need help…. A lot of parents don’t know that they can [advocate for their children]. Or they think they have to work with the system that is there. And we all want the same thing. We all want the best for our children.

Child Care

““I did not believe in universal child care until I had a child… There are subsidies for child care in Delaware, but they need to provide more of them. I feel that this is a workers’ issue and an infrastructure issue. You have people that want to go to work, and they can’t.“

– Angela Moore (DE)

Angela M. told ZERO TO THREE, “I did not believe in universal child care until I had a child… There are subsidies for child care in Delaware, but they need to provide more of them. I feel that this is a workers’ issue and an infrastructure issue. You have people that want to go to work, and they can’t.”

When she became pregnant, Angela found that child care options in rural Southern Delaware were scarce, expensive and overcrowded. “As a first time mom at 42, I was all ready with my spreadsheets. I’m going to go look at this daycare, and look up this one, and see the ratings.’ But it didn’t matter. I had no choice. I just had to put him wherever I could and it was terrifying.”

After she secured child care for her son at the one place that was available, but not the level of quality that her baby needed, she is now staying home with her son, even though it is causing financial strain for her family. As a self-described career woman, staying at home and pausing her successful career was never what she expected.

Although she is looking for work, she knows that securing child care will once again be a struggle in her rural community, as the limited options continue to be full with long waitlists.

Without dramatic public investments in the access to quality child care, Angela worries, “Parents of babies nowadays, we’re not going to make it. Everything is expensive. If things don’t change, the middle class is going to be gone.”

Paid Leave

“Going back to work when your baby is six weeks old is no mother’s dream, but my job was on the line.”

– Anna Akins (LA)

Anna exhausted most of her unpaid leave to give birth to her son with her husband Gabriel. When Gareth turned 6 weeks, she had to return to work. As a newborn, Gareth was often ill with major allergies, asthma, and other complications. Without the benefit of paid leave to allow her to care for his complicated health needs, Anna was ultimately forced to resign from her job – at great financial cost to their family. Paid family and medical leave would have provided Anna’s family with more financial flexibility to ensure Gareth’s safe and healthy development.

Child Care

“The biggest struggle of parenthood has been finding affordable and trustworthy care for our children.”

– Britney Lombard (CO)

Britney and Adam work hard to build financial stability for their family, but find themselves continually thwarted by lack of quality, affordable child care for their young children. Initially, facing full-time child care costs greater than her income, Britney was forced to cut her hours to work part-time. But when Adam started his own small business, and their children no longer needed more costly infant care, Britney returned to work full-time, calculating that the slim margin of profit was necessary for their family. Working families like Adam and Britney should have access to the quality, affordable child care options they need to help their children thrive.

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