Community petition urges Los Alamos Medical Center to keep baby deliveries local

Nicole O’Daniel’s petition is turning a hospital decision into a countywide test of access, travel time and family stability in Los Alamos. As Los Alamos Medical Center prepares to move labor and delivery services out of town in late June, O’Daniel is circulating a letter through Action Network that asks the community to push back before one of the county’s core health services disappears.

The petition grew out of an emotional reaction from expectant parents and families who have relied on Los Alamos Medical Center for women’s health care close to home. It invites residents to add testimonials and sign a request that LAMC keep baby deliveries in Los Alamos rather than send births to Presbyterian Española Hospital and CHRISTUS St. Vincent in Santa Fe. The appeal also names patient advocate Justin Green and state Rep. Christine Chandler among the people it is directed to.

LAMC announced its regional obstetric model on April 24, saying the change was intended to preserve access to safe, high-quality maternity care. Bob Singletary, the hospital’s interim CEO, said the arrangement would keep as much care as possible close to home while making higher levels of obstetric care available when needed. The hospital said prenatal, postpartum and other women’s health services will continue locally at Los Alamos Women’s Health even after deliveries transition out of town.

For many families in Los Alamos and White Rock, the issue is not abstract. LAMC is the only hospital in Los Alamos County, and its Mother and Baby unit has eight private rooms, including four LDRP rooms. Once deliveries shift, parents will have to plan for longer drives and different delivery sites, with a growing gap between routine prenatal visits and the place where labor actually happens.

That gap matters in a county of 19,675 people, where young families often weigh school quality, commute time and health care access together when deciding whether to stay or move in. Losing local deliveries can make a place feel less stable for working households, especially when labor starts unexpectedly and the nearest maternity floor is no longer in town.

The broader problem extends well beyond Los Alamos. New Mexico has been described as facing one of the nation’s most serious maternity-care access crises, with nearly 18% of women lacking access to a birthing hospital within 30 minutes of home. HRSA says more than half of rural U.S. counties lack hospital obstetric services, and a 2024 Senate Democratic proposal said about one quarter of rural hospitals stopped providing obstetrics between 2012 and 2022.

O’Daniel’s petition frames the issue as both a protest and a demand for clarity. Los Alamos families are not only asking whether deliveries will stay local. They are asking when the change will happen, how the decision was made and what replacement maternal care will look like once the county stops being a place where babies are born.