El Paso Near Bottom Of National ‘Best Of’ List

By ABC-7 Reporter/Anchor Ashlie Hardway

EL PASO, Texas – The Sun City makes the ‘Best Cities in America to have a Baby’ list; the thing is,El Pasodidn’t rank very high on the list.

El Paso comes in at #34 on the list of 50 cities; Portland, Minneapolis and San Francisco made the top-three. Fit Pregnancy Magazine conducted the study, looking at affordability, maternal and infant health risk, breastfeeding, child care, safety and access to hospitals and doctors, among other categories. El Paso did well in affordability and safety, but average or poor in other areas.

Citing several reputable organizations, the magazine found 67% of babies six-months-old and older aren’t being breastfed. Dr. Chris Powers recently read a Center for Disease Control study that found most mothers vow to breastfeed when the baby is born, but then don’t keep up with it.

“That looks great until you follow it a month, couple of months, and find out that the rate of continuous breastfeeding has dropped down to something like 15 and 18%,” said Rio Grand OB/GYN physician Dr. Powers.

Further, the study found El Paso doesn’t have nearly the amount of OB/GYNs per capita as other cities.

“In my field, I don’t know any ob/gyns who aren’t working flat out maximum, seeing as many patients as they can,” he said.

If you would like to look at Fit Pregnancy’s study, click here.