NEWS: The Mercury - 20/11/2006 'Babies born on ice'

Babies born on 'ice'
PHILIPPA DUNCAN
November 20, 2006 12:00am

NINETEEN babies born at the Royal Hobart Hospital had to be given morphine last year to withdraw from hard drugs including the deadly illicit amphetamine cocktail ice.

Traces of other drugs found in their blood included heroin, methadone, speed and valium.

Babies also showed signs of drug withdrawal.

RHH neonatology director Peter Dargaville said drug-addicted babies had a "shocking start to life", suffering irritability, sweatiness, fever and seizures.

"It is horrible to watch," he said.

"They have a piercing high-pitched screech."

It can take up to eight weeks to wean a baby from drugs and doses of morphine every four hours are needed to dull the painful symptoms.

Dr Dargaville said that "quite often" drug-addicted mothers had already lost a child to state care as a result of abuse or neglect.

"Then, she comes in and has another baby," he said.

The babies are poor feeders and are often underweight.

Dr Dargaville would like to introduce drug screening at the RHH to ensure parents are free of illicit drugs before they take their babies home.

The mother of a six-month-old baby girl who died last weekend in Hobart is suspected of taking drugs through and after the pregnancy.

The coroner is investigating the cause of the death, but early clinical advice suggests Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

The number of babies born at the RHH with drug withdrawals so severe they needed morphine and weeks in hospital has hovered around 19 annually for the past five years.

But in the past three years, the types of drugs involved have changed.

"The complexity has increased," RHH pediatrician Liz Hallam said.

"Ten years ago, it was only one drug, usually heroin.

"Now a mother may be using two or three drugs, not just one.

"We are seeing an increasing problem with amphetamines."

Dr Dargaville said nurses in the special care nursery had to carry the babies in front pouches because they demanded constant attention.

"They're inconsolable," he said.

Nurses had to deal with the families of the babies, who were often "very abusive".

"One can't say that a drug addiction does not mean you don't care for the child," he said.

"But, it tends to take preference in your life.

"I have seen parents who are prepared to compromise their baby to feed their habit."

Dr Dargaville has welcomed former children's commissioner David Fanning's recent recommendations to reform the failing child protection system.

The recommendations have been accepted and include new laws to allow doctors and nurses to notify the system about unborn children.

Dr Dargaville said hospitals currently had to wait until babies were born, leading to delays of days or weeks before their concerns were acted on.

He also supported the review of take-away methadone supplies for parents, prompted by the death of a baby boy in the South from a methadone overdose last year.

The RHH has also been promised a dedicated child protection worker based at the hospital to foster closer links between the two organisations.

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They should be drug-screened before getting pregnant. All drug users should be given long-term contraceptives. Then they can become drug-free first.

Jolanda Antkowicz, 40, Lenah Valley

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