An Important Update From The Executive Director

August 22, 2025 | Uncategorized

Dear Dar a Luz Community:

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to share the news that
Dar a Luz Birth & Health Center will no longer offer labor and birth services as
of 12/15/2025. I know. Take a few moments… and take a few deep breaths with me.

For the past 15 years, Dar a Luz has been the leading birth center in New Mexico.
In total, we have cared for over 3,300 pregnant and non-pregnant women/people,
their newborns and their families. To date, we have attended 1,716 births at the
center and have celebrated the birth of another 900+ babies born with our
colleagues at our local hospitals.

For the past 15 years, with government, public and private support, in addition to
revenue from services, we have scraped by. This model of care (low-volume and
high-touch) has been harder to sustain, particularly in the last 2 years. There are
several reasons for this:

The number of due dates that we can accept every year has plateaued. This means we have not had any growth since 2020;
The transfer rate due to medical complications in pregnancy has also increased since 2020;
The cost of giving this specialized midwifery care has increased due to inflation: this includes all of our insurances, and the cost of supplies and medications;
Insurance reimbursements have not kept up with inflation and do not adequately cover the cost of birth in our center;
Grants for our non-profit and model of care are hard to come by and those we do qualify for are often not enough to offset our general operating expenses;
The political climate towards non-profits has simply become more volatile– the freezing of federal funds impacts all organizations because more non-profits are requesting funds from private foundations. That is, more organizations are fighting for less money overall.

In a very short period of time, Dar a Luz sustained financial losses that give us two
choices at this time: we continue with this model of care and close OR we make the
decision to stop offering labor and birth and pivot our model to a more
comprehensive women’s health center that serves more people through the
lifespan, not just during pregnancy. While we have always offered gynecological
care and lactation support, those services have not been enough to close the gap
as they are only about 12% of our revenue.

In 2023, we found ourselves in a similar situation and made the decision to a) figure
out how we might be able to expand our services and b) launch the #SaveDaraLuz
fundraising campaign. We raised just over $220,000 in under 6 months and bought
ourselves another year while we worked on expansion. Beginning in 2024, we had a
plan to build an additional building on our campus with federal community project
funding (discretionary funding) as this expansion was the only way to financial
sustainability. That community funding was massively reduced (and nearly banned)
in the federal budget that was approved in March 2025. At this time, there does not
appear to be a path to receive this funding in the near future.

The cost of staffing a center this size 24/7/365 with enough nurses and midwives is
the majority of our operating expenses… and not a single person who works at
this center, clinical or administrative, is getting paid adequately for the work that we do.
Let that sink in for a second. Our amazing staff works here because of the love of
this model of care, this center, and this community. So in order to not close our
doors for good and offer our exemplary care for many others, we have to decrease
our expenses and shift our focus to services that bring in more sustained revenue.

In the coming weeks, we will share with you our plans for change. We will continue
to offer our amazing prenatal, postpartum, newborn care and education classes.
We have already opened our lactation clinic 7 days a week which is available to all
people who need help with breastfeeding. We are planning to offer expanded
gynecological care including more complex issues and peri + menopausal care,
mental health services including ketamine infusions for those who qualify, and a
teen clinic, with additional services underway.

While there is deep sadness and grief around losing the ability to catch babies at
Dar a Luz, we believe that when one door closes, many others can open. We are
committed to caring for women and people in this community who are in need of
excellent care across the lifespan and can’t access it for various reasons. We have
persevered through so much over the years and we won’t stop now. We also
believe in hope. And we hope that you will too.

If you have ever received care from Dar a Luz, get ready to come back and receive
the care that you deserve not just during pregnancy. We believe in empowering
women in their health care throughout their entire lives. Stay tuned. We aren’t going
anywhere.

With love and gratitude,

Abigail Lanin Eaves, CNM
Executive Director

Follow Us