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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
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Newborns Face Greater Risks At City Shelters, Experts Say

 The stress of shelter can have enduring effects, experts say.
The stress of shelter can have enduring effects, experts say.
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NEW YORK CITY — The nearly 2,000 babies born into city shelters last year are at risk of developmental problems due to stress and lack of services, according to researchers.

Family shelters are rife with life-threatening hazards and lack security and social services, the city’s Department of Investigation found earlier this month.

Such failings are particularly problematic for the 1,800 babies born into the city shelter system in 2014, according to a study released in January by The Center for New York City Affairs at the New School.

“Despite research showing that the early years are crucial to lifelong brain development, children 3 and under receive little programming in shelters,” they said in the study. 

Shelter conditions put babies at a developmental disadvantage, according to Dr. Susan Chinitz, who runs the Early Childhood Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“Babies’ environments are recruited into their brain development,” Chinitz said, “Meaning that the brain is shaped based on the circumstances where the baby is living.”

She said that babies who spend their first months in highly stressful environments fall behind their peers as early as nine months old.

“When children are very overloaded with toxic stress…that’s a system on overload all the time for these children so they become less able to manage stressors later on,” she said.

“There are divergences in language development early on and cognitive development.”

Former Williamsburg resident Naiquan Pritchett, 34, said his bathroom sink had recently almost fallen on his infant daughter Makaila at the shelter where they live.

“The conditions are horrible,” he told DNAinfo New York. “I can’t even begin to describe the type of conditions.”

Pritchett and his wife moved into the Hamilton Place Hotel shelter last May, when their daughter Mikaila was three months old.  The converted hotel is run by HELP USA, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s sister’s nonprofit, the Daily News reported, and the Department of Investigation found 31 fire and building code violations in June, including that the building lacked a fire safety plan. 

The Department of Homeless Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Pritchett said he was concerned about the impact that the shelter environment is having on his daughter.

“It could be loud,” he said, adding that people have run through the building holding guns numerous times. 

Chinitz said shelter policies such as curfews and limited visitors, though sometimes necessary, can make parenting harder, and she questioned the quality of childcare available.

“We have found very few shelters that have high-quality childcare or daycare, and high-quality is really important for infants,” she said.

More than 40,000 children passed through the city shelter system last year, including almost 19,000 children under five, according to the New School report. 

Homeless children in the city are disproportionately African-American, a Coalition For the Homeless report found last week.

One in 17 African-American children and 1 in 34 Latino children in New York City slept at least one night in a city homeless shelter last year, compared to 1 in 368 white children. 

Further disadvantage is the last thing Pritchett wants for his daughter. He hopes to be able to provide “a nice life for my children,” and he worries about finding a safe neighborhood and decent school districts.

“My hope and plan is to make it out of this dump,” he said.