New Mexico Warns Against Raw Milk After Newborn Baby Dies

A newborn baby in New Mexico died from a Listeria infection. State health officials believe raw milk the mother drank while pregnant killed the child.

The New Mexico Department of Health put out a warning Tuesday saying unpasteurized milk was the "most likely source of infection." They didn't share more details—no names, no specifics, just that a baby died. And the culprit was raw milk.

Dr. Chad Smelser, deputy state epidemiologist, didn't mince words. "Individuals who are pregnant should only consume pasteurized milk products to help prevent illnesses and deaths in newborns."

However, despite years of health experts screaming about the dangers, despite deaths and hospitalizations, raw milk has become some kind of wellness trend.

Why Raw Milk Kills People

Raw milk hasn't been pasteurized. Pasteurization heats milk hot enough to kill harmful bacteria and pathogens. It's been preventing milk-borne illnesses since the early 1900s. We've known it works for over a century.

Raw milk skips that step entirely. All the dangerous bacteria pasteurization would normally kill are still alive in the milk. That includes Listeria, which is particularly vicious toward pregnant women, newborns, older adults, and anyone with a weakened immune system.

Here's what makes Listeria so brutal for pregnant women: the mother might only get mildly sick. Maybe some flu-like symptoms. Maybe nothing at all. But Listeria crosses the placenta and attacks the fetus. It causes miscarriages, stillbirths, preterm births, or in this case, kills the newborn after birth.

Listeria isn't even the only threat. Raw milk can carry avian influenza, Brucella, Tuberculosis, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, and E. coli. Kids under 5 and adults over 65 face especially high risks from some of these.

The CDC says pasteurized milk offers the same nutritional benefits without the risks. But somehow that message isn't landing, particularly among some influencers.

Wellness Influencers Made This a Thing

Raw milk got trendy over the past few years thanks to wellness influencers and raw milk advocates who keep claiming pasteurization destroys bioactives—chemicals that supposedly promote good health.

Health experts have said over and over that the nutritional changes from pasteurization are "extremely minimal." The supposed benefits of raw milk largely don't exist. There's also this persistent myth that bacteria in raw milk is good for your gut. Registered dietitian Jamie Nadeau called that "far-fetched," which feels like she's being generous.

Raw milk got rebranded as this wellness miracle, a return to natural living, a way to avoid "processed" foods. And people bought into it. They're still buying into it. Even after repeated warnings. Even after people keep dying.

This Keeps Happening

The New Mexico death isn't new. Raw milk has been causing problems for years.

In 2024, the CDC, FDA, and Department of Agriculture all told people not to drink raw milk after finding high levels of H5N1 bird flu virus in unpasteurized milk. That was during a bird flu outbreak. People kept drinking it anyway.

Last August in Florida, 21 people got sick after drinking raw milk from the same farm. Six were kids under 10. At least two had what officials called "severe complications."

That same month, a central Florida woman sued a dairy farm and grocery store after raw milk allegedly hospitalized her and her toddler and killed her unborn baby.

A Completely Preventable Death

What makes this whole thing so infuriating is that it didn't have to happen. Pasteurization is simple. It's effective. It's been around for over a century. A baby died because misinformation convinced a pregnant woman raw milk was safe.

The New Mexico Department of Health called this a "tragic death" that "underscores the serious risks raw dairy poses to pregnant women, young children, elderly New Mexicans and anyone with a weakened immune system." That's an understatement.

Jeff Witte, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, said consumers at higher risk should choose pasteurized dairy products. It's good advice that shouldn't need to be given.

This death was avoidable. Pasteurized milk would have prevented it. But as long as raw milk keeps getting marketed as a health product, as long as influencers keep pushing it despite mountains of evidence showing it's dangerous, this will keep happening. More babies will die. More families will be destroyed. All because people decided science and decades of public health data don't matter as much as what some wellness influencer said on Instagram.

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