Crystal, Colorado

When a Parent Is Hurting, a Baby Feels It

I wish more people understood this: a parent’s mental health shapes everything.

Crystal

I wish more people understood this: a parent’s mental health shapes everything.

When a parent is in crisis, when they’re overwhelmed, depressed, untreated, or just trying to survive, babies are affected. Even when it’s not obvious from the outside, that connection runs deep. If a parent isn’t supported and “checked in,” it’s hard to stabilize. It’s hard to heal. And it’s hard to give a baby what they need.

Getting a handle on a parent’s mental health isn’t optional: it’s crucial for a child’s development.

Parent Voice Belongs at the Table

Parent voice is critical because these decisions directly impact us.

So many parents enter child welfare without understanding how it works. I know I did. But once you’ve lived it, you understand the system in a way no handbook can teach. And if decisions are affecting parents’ lives, parents need to be part of that conversation.

Not as a checkbox. Not as a “nice to have.” As real partners. Because without parent engagement, there’s no reunification.

Being in a room full of parent leaders changed me.

It was life-changing because it reminded me: I’m not alone. That space helped something settle in my heart: my voice matters. And not only that, but my voice can help someone else keep going.

There are parents like me everywhere: facing stigma, facing barriers, trying to get their children back. And we share a common goal: reunification.

Crystal

I'm Not Alone

Support doesn’t look the same for everyone. Some parents don’t have family support. Some don’t have stable housing.

For me, reunification meant finding a safe place for my child and me. I’d been in housing. I’d been pushed out of housing. When it came down to it, the option in front of me was sober living.

I didn’t know anything about sober living when I arrived. It wasn’t something I had planned for, and it wasn’t where I wanted to stay. From the beginning, I knew this was not my forever.

But it was enough. It gave me the structure and support I needed to stabilize, to focus, and to keep moving forward. Sober living became a stepping stone. One place in a longer journey toward where I wanted to be: stable, safe, and able to provide for my family.

What would have helped even more? Education and early connection to resources, before families are scrambling in survival mode. When parents know what’s available, when someone helps them navigate supports, it changes everything.

My Why

My why is reunification. In 2016, I had a baby. My baby passed at seven months from SIDS.

I got heavily into drugs. I was deeply depressed. I didn’t know how to handle that kind of loss. And when I became pregnant again, I was in denial. I knew I had a problem, and I sent my older child to stay with family.

When my youngest was born, right around the anniversary of my daughter’s passing, something clicked. I’ll see my daughter again one day. That’s what I believe. But my children here, on this planet, need me now.

That’s my why. They need me.

Today, as a Safe Babies parent leader, serving on the National Advisory Group for Parents’ Voices, I bring my lived experience into rooms where decisions are made and in my daily work, I stand beside other parents, reminding them that reunification is possible and that their voice matters.

I do this work because I don’t want parents to feel alone the way I did. I don’t want families to lose time they can’t get back. I want more parents to get the support they need early, and I want more systems to see what’s already true:

When you support a parent, you support a baby.

When you honor a parent’s voice, you strengthen a family.

And when you believe reunification is possible, parents start to believe it, too.

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