Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
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Shocking video reveals the horror of babies born addicted to drugs: Newborns tiny legs shudder uncontrollably during heroin withdrawal - as it's revealed an opioid-addicted child is born every 19 minutes in the US
Shaking violently in a hospital crib, two tiny legs twitch and shudder uncontrollably.
Wailing, muscle clenching and gasping for breath accompany the disturbing fit-like seizure.
But, what makes the image all the more heartbreaking, is the newborn baby's diagnosis.
Despite being just weeks old, the tiny baby is suffering the effects of drug withdrawal, having been born addicted to opioids.
Every 19 minutes a child in the US is born with an opioid addiction - a devastating affliction inherited from their drug-addict mothers.
While for most newborns the first precious weeks of life are full of love, care and adoration, for babies born addicted to drugs their first weeks are long, agonizing and distressing as they battle neonatal abstinence syndrome.
The condition can cause babies to tremble and wail inconsolably, clenching their muscles and sometimes gasping for breath – as they go through drug withdrawal.
The video is part of an investigation by Reuters into the horrifying reality facing babies born with drug dependencies inherited from their drug-addicted mothers while in the womb.
The US is in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic that extends to pregnant women.
More than 130,000 children in the US were born addicted to drugs over the last decade.
Each of them have suffered the symptoms of neonatal abstinence syndrome, which are similar to those of adult heroin addicts who go 'cold turkey' in an effort to beat their dependence.
A 12-year-old federal law – called the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act – calls on states to take steps to safeguard these babies after they leave the hospital.
But, the effort is failing across the nation – and endangering children.
One mother, Jennifer Lacey Frazier recently completed drug treatment and parenting classes.
However, the help came too late to save her daughter, Jacey.
The baby inherited her mother’s blue eyes – and Frazier’s dependency on drugs.
Jacey spent two weeks suffering withdrawal, a result of the methadone Frazier took during pregnancy to control an addiction to prescription painkillers.
Six months later, the girl was dead – the victim of a lethal dose of methadone Frazier mistakenly gave her.
Frazier said in a letter from prison: ‘I wish social services had been at my home investigating, talking to me, checking on Jacey.
‘I didn’t just slip through the cracks in the system; I fell through the canyon into hell.’
The investigation identified 110 cases since 2010 that are similar to Jacey’s – babies and toddlers whose mothers used opioids during pregnancy and who later died preventable deaths.
Being born dependent on drugs didn’t kill these children.
Each of them recovered well enough to be discharged from the hospital.
Yet, what sealed their fates was being sent home to families ill-equipped to care for them.
More than 40 of the children suffocated.
Thirteen died after swallowing toxic doses of methadone, heroin, oxycodone or other opioids.
In one case, a baby in Oklahoma died after her mother, high on methamphetamine and opioids, put the 10-day-old girl in a washing machine with a load of dirty laundry.
The cases illustrate fatal flaws in the attempts to address what President Barack Obama has called America’s 'epidemic' of opioid addiction.
The crisis is fed by the ready availability of prescription painkillers and cheap heroin.
In 2003, when Congress passed the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act, around 5,000 drug-dependent babies were born in the United States.
That number has grown dramatically in the years since.
Using hospital discharge records, Reuters tallied more than 27,000 diagnosed cases of drug-dependent newborns in 2013 - the latest year for which data are available.
On average, one baby was born dependent on opioids every 19 minutes.
The federal law calls on states to protect each of these babies, regardless of whether the drugs their mothers took were illicit or prescribed.
Healthcare providers aren’t simply expected to treat the infants in the hospital.
They are supposed to alert child protection authorities so that social workers can ensure the newborn’s safety after the hospital sends the child home.
But most states are ignoring the federal provisions, leaving thousands of newborns at risk every year.
And statutes or policies in the remaining five states are murky and confusing, even for doctors and child protection workers.
In three-quarters of the 110 fatalities identified, the mother was implicated in her child’s death; in others, her boyfriend, husband or another relative was.
In 75 of the cases, child protection workers were notified but didn’t take protective measures specified in the federal law.
In many cases, hospitals didn’t report a drug-dependent baby’s condition to social services and the child died after being sent home.
Clorissa Jones was addicted to drugs when she gave birth to her first son, Jacoby.
Ms Jones said: 'I was in labor, in the bathroom shooting heroin, about to give birth to my child.'
She continued using drugs after Jacoby was born.
Ms Jones eventually lost custody of the boy crashing her car into a parked vehicle while on the way to buy drugs - with 22-day-old Jacoby in the back seat.
She then learned she was seven weeks pregnant with her second child.
At the time, she was smoking crack and doing heroin - but losing custody of Jacoby was the wake-up-call she needed to try to kick her addiction.
She entered a rehabilitation program for addicted mothers at Johns Hopkins University.
Her second son, Braxton, was born with a dependence to methadone, which she was taking to kick her heroin habit.
Braxton went through withdrawal for the first two weeks of his life, but is largely healthy - although he has trouble feeding.
Ms Jones retained custody of Braxton and is supposed to get custody of Jacoby back this month.
But, programs such as the ones at John Hopkins are few and scattered across the country.
Former US Representative Jim Greenwood, a Republican from Pennsylvania who authored the provisions in the 2003 federal law, said: 'The fact that the mother is in treatment is a good thing.
'But that doesn’t prove that she has a place to live that’s safe.
'It doesn’t prove that she knows how to parent.… It doesn’t say anything about the baby’s situation.
'And this is all about protecting the baby.'
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...d-19-minutes-child-born-addicted-opioids.html
Shaking violently in a hospital crib, two tiny legs twitch and shudder uncontrollably.
Wailing, muscle clenching and gasping for breath accompany the disturbing fit-like seizure.
But, what makes the image all the more heartbreaking, is the newborn baby's diagnosis.
Despite being just weeks old, the tiny baby is suffering the effects of drug withdrawal, having been born addicted to opioids.
Every 19 minutes a child in the US is born with an opioid addiction - a devastating affliction inherited from their drug-addict mothers.
While for most newborns the first precious weeks of life are full of love, care and adoration, for babies born addicted to drugs their first weeks are long, agonizing and distressing as they battle neonatal abstinence syndrome.
The condition can cause babies to tremble and wail inconsolably, clenching their muscles and sometimes gasping for breath – as they go through drug withdrawal.
The video is part of an investigation by Reuters into the horrifying reality facing babies born with drug dependencies inherited from their drug-addicted mothers while in the womb.
The US is in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic that extends to pregnant women.
More than 130,000 children in the US were born addicted to drugs over the last decade.
Each of them have suffered the symptoms of neonatal abstinence syndrome, which are similar to those of adult heroin addicts who go 'cold turkey' in an effort to beat their dependence.
A 12-year-old federal law – called the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act – calls on states to take steps to safeguard these babies after they leave the hospital.
But, the effort is failing across the nation – and endangering children.
One mother, Jennifer Lacey Frazier recently completed drug treatment and parenting classes.
However, the help came too late to save her daughter, Jacey.
The baby inherited her mother’s blue eyes – and Frazier’s dependency on drugs.
Jacey spent two weeks suffering withdrawal, a result of the methadone Frazier took during pregnancy to control an addiction to prescription painkillers.
Six months later, the girl was dead – the victim of a lethal dose of methadone Frazier mistakenly gave her.
Frazier said in a letter from prison: ‘I wish social services had been at my home investigating, talking to me, checking on Jacey.
‘I didn’t just slip through the cracks in the system; I fell through the canyon into hell.’
The investigation identified 110 cases since 2010 that are similar to Jacey’s – babies and toddlers whose mothers used opioids during pregnancy and who later died preventable deaths.
Being born dependent on drugs didn’t kill these children.
Each of them recovered well enough to be discharged from the hospital.
Yet, what sealed their fates was being sent home to families ill-equipped to care for them.
More than 40 of the children suffocated.
Thirteen died after swallowing toxic doses of methadone, heroin, oxycodone or other opioids.
In one case, a baby in Oklahoma died after her mother, high on methamphetamine and opioids, put the 10-day-old girl in a washing machine with a load of dirty laundry.
The cases illustrate fatal flaws in the attempts to address what President Barack Obama has called America’s 'epidemic' of opioid addiction.
The crisis is fed by the ready availability of prescription painkillers and cheap heroin.
In 2003, when Congress passed the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act, around 5,000 drug-dependent babies were born in the United States.
That number has grown dramatically in the years since.
Using hospital discharge records, Reuters tallied more than 27,000 diagnosed cases of drug-dependent newborns in 2013 - the latest year for which data are available.
On average, one baby was born dependent on opioids every 19 minutes.
The federal law calls on states to protect each of these babies, regardless of whether the drugs their mothers took were illicit or prescribed.
Healthcare providers aren’t simply expected to treat the infants in the hospital.
They are supposed to alert child protection authorities so that social workers can ensure the newborn’s safety after the hospital sends the child home.
But most states are ignoring the federal provisions, leaving thousands of newborns at risk every year.
And statutes or policies in the remaining five states are murky and confusing, even for doctors and child protection workers.
In three-quarters of the 110 fatalities identified, the mother was implicated in her child’s death; in others, her boyfriend, husband or another relative was.
In 75 of the cases, child protection workers were notified but didn’t take protective measures specified in the federal law.
In many cases, hospitals didn’t report a drug-dependent baby’s condition to social services and the child died after being sent home.
Clorissa Jones was addicted to drugs when she gave birth to her first son, Jacoby.
Ms Jones said: 'I was in labor, in the bathroom shooting heroin, about to give birth to my child.'
She continued using drugs after Jacoby was born.
Ms Jones eventually lost custody of the boy crashing her car into a parked vehicle while on the way to buy drugs - with 22-day-old Jacoby in the back seat.
She then learned she was seven weeks pregnant with her second child.
At the time, she was smoking crack and doing heroin - but losing custody of Jacoby was the wake-up-call she needed to try to kick her addiction.
She entered a rehabilitation program for addicted mothers at Johns Hopkins University.
Her second son, Braxton, was born with a dependence to methadone, which she was taking to kick her heroin habit.
Braxton went through withdrawal for the first two weeks of his life, but is largely healthy - although he has trouble feeding.
Ms Jones retained custody of Braxton and is supposed to get custody of Jacoby back this month.
But, programs such as the ones at John Hopkins are few and scattered across the country.
Former US Representative Jim Greenwood, a Republican from Pennsylvania who authored the provisions in the 2003 federal law, said: 'The fact that the mother is in treatment is a good thing.
'But that doesn’t prove that she has a place to live that’s safe.
'It doesn’t prove that she knows how to parent.… It doesn’t say anything about the baby’s situation.
'And this is all about protecting the baby.'
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...d-19-minutes-child-born-addicted-opioids.html
