Number Of Drug Addicted Infants Soars

[foolsgold]

(UNDATED) - An alarming increase in the rate of drug dependent infants is being reported and state officials want to curb the problem.
The condition, known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), occurs when expecting mothers take drugs that create the addictions in newborns. Babies diagnosed with NAS are given morphine and kept in the hospital until they can be weaned off the drugs.
During their withdrawal, infants are fussy, hard to calm down, have diarrhea, bad rashes, vomiting and life-threatening seizures.
Both legal and illegal narcotics have been linked to the withdrawals in newborns including cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methadone, codeine, oxycodone, OxyContin, Vicodin, Ritalin, Adderall, Paxil, Zoloft, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Xanax, Valium, Ativan, Klonopin and barbiturates, according to the National Institute of Health.
A task force comprised of both Indiana medical and legal experts is pushing for a law that would allow closer monitoring of mothers using drugs that cause NAS. The law would also provide some protection for expectant mothers if they voluntarily seek and stay in treatment for any addictions.
Natalie Robinson, coordinator of the Attorney General's Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force, told members of the legislative Indiana Commission on Mental Health and Addiction the problem has reached epidemic levels.
"Even more startling than the higher risks, is the pain and suffering that a newborn with NAS endures after birth," she says. "Nobody really knows what the long-term developmental effects are or the baby's ability to learn later."
According to a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association, the number of newborns that have opiate drug withdrawal is more than triple what it was in just the last decade.
Robinson had told the committee that the "extreme shortage" of drug treatment services and medical professionals who are willing to treat expecting women with addictions is not helping to address the problem.
The task force hopes there will be new legislative measures passed in the next session including the requirement of all health providers to report cases of NAS to the state health department, regulation of prescription pain-killers like Tramadol and an increase in penalties for abusing or giving the drugs to others.
Other states, such as Michigan, Oregon, Tennessee, West Virginia and California, have made combating prescription drug abuse a priority with mandatory continuing education on pain management or specials laws for pregnant women who have addictions.
Watching for signs:
Medical professionals are specially trained to observe signs and symptoms of drug withdrawal in newborns which include:
W -- wakefulness
I -- irritability
T -- tremors, temperature instability, tachypnea
H -- hyperactive, high-pitched cry, hypertonic, hyperacusis
D -- diarrhea, diaphoreses
R -- rhinorrhea, rub marks
A -- apnea, autonomic dysfunction
W -- weight loss
A -- alkalosis
L -- lacrimation
Other symptoms include hiccups, excessive yawning, excessive sneezing and seizures. Medical officials say that if withdrawal symptoms are not properly treated the seizures experienced by newborns can result in death. If you know someone who is abusing drugs, health care providers say you should encourage the person to seek help.
Source: Community Hospital Anderson

http://www.wbiw.com/local/archive/2013/11/numbers-soar-of-drug-addicted-infants.php

 

[23536]

They're starting younger and younger these kids!

 

[neversickanymore]

If you aren't going to get clean for the pregnancy then you have no business having the baby IMO. And although I am pro choice I am also PRO LIFE as its included in the CHOICE part.

 

[slimvictor]

So sad for these babies, to start life with 2 strikes against them.
Their mothers are irresponsible shits who need a swift kick in the rear, if you ask me.

 

[gh0stmAn]

This really pisses me off when a pregnant women takes drugs while pregnant... And i am sure 99.9% of these babies born to drug addicted mothers the drug of choice of these mothers are opiates.. I mean can you imagine the day you are born you are addicted to opiates and have to be detoxed off them your first few months in this world.. I am a guy and I have even made the commitment to myself that I will not bring a child into this world unless I am 100% sober just to make sure the baby has the best chance of being normal.. I would be so pissed if my wife used drugs while pregnant. But hopefully most women who are addicted to some drug will make sure not to get pregnant until they are clean and sober.

 

[S.J.B.]

This is all BULLSHIT.

It's more dangerous for a baby if the mother quits opioids and goes through withdrawal than if she stays on them.

The babies aren't in withdrawal. It's propaganda and misinformation and a way to encourage hate and further persecution of opioid-addicted mothers.

From the Consumer's Union Report:

Effect on childbirth. It is often stated that pregnant addicts suffer "a high incidence of maternal complications such as toxemia, abruptio placentae, retained placenta, postpartum hemorrhage, prematurity by weight, breech delivery, and high neonatal morbidity and mortality." 39 This may be true. Such complications of pregnancy, however, are also associated with poverty, malnutrition, infection, and lack of prenatal care. No controlled studies have been made of the relative incidence of complications of pregnancy among addicted and nonaddicted women from the same neighborhood and socioeconomic status.

The findings of Drs. Blinick, Wallach, and Jerez cast some doubt on the conventional view. They studied 100 consecutive births to addicts at Beth Israel. Many of the mothers suffered from malnutrition, and 18 had positive blood tests for syphilis. Many earned their living by prostitution. Individual mothers also suffered from such conditions unfavorable to a healthy pregnancy as cancer (carcinoma in situ of the cervix), rheumatic fever, anemia, hepatitis and other forms of liver disease, epilepsy, and Class A diabetes. One addict had had ten babies; another was over forty years old; many had a history of using other drugs in addition to heroin. Almost all were heavy cigarette smokers. Two had had prior cesarean sections. Despite this concentration of unfavorable antecedent conditions, 88 of the 100 mothers gave uneventful birth to healthy babies. * The chief divergence from normal noted was low birth weight--- a condition known to be associated with poverty and with cigarette smoking. Breech deliveries were also frequent; these were probably associated with low birth weight and thus with cigarette smoking and poverty. "In this series, contrary to reports and expectations," the Beth Israel team summed up, "there have been few serious complications." 41



* The standard test for the condition of a baby at birth, the "one-minute Apgar test," rates such factors as breathing, crying, color, etc. The scale runs from 0 to 10. Eighty-nine of the 100 babies born to heroin addicts had high (8, 9, or 10) Apgar scores. 40





In a series of 230 babies born at Beth Israel to addicted mothers, only two had congenital defects 42 --- a rate which would be considered low in a group of nonaddicted mothers.

Effect on babies born to addicted mothers. Morphine and heroin, like alcohol and nicotine, are believed to pass through the placenta and reach the unborn baby. They are also believed to enter the mother's milk, so that a breast-fed baby is maintained on the drug and is weaned from the drug as it is weaned from the breast. There are numerous reports of withdrawal symptoms in babies who are not breast-fed; and at some hospitals opiates or other drugs are administered if a baby born to an addicted mother exhibits what appear to be opiate withdrawal symptoms.

There is not full agreement, however, on the conventional views summarized above. Thus Drs. Blinick, Wallach, and Jerez have some doubts concerning the passage of opiates to the fetus. "Placental transfer of narcotics prior to and during labor is poorly understood and the conclusions of experimentation are open to doubt," they report . 43

"The minute amounts of morphine that pass the placenta barrier," Dr. Blinick reported sometime later, "cannot be detected by ordinary biochemical methods." 44 In the Beth Israel series of 100 consecutive births to heroin addicts, it proved unnecessary to administer opiates to the babies. The many reports that such babies require opiates are all based on clinical judgment; no one has divided babies into two groups at random to see whether babies who receive opiates do better than babies who merely receive good care.

Dr. Saul Blatman, the pediatrician at Beth Israel in charge of the care of the babies in the Blinick-Wallach-Jerez sample, points out that many infants born to heroin addicts, like many born to other ill or poverty stricken mothers, suffer from low birth weight and other signs of immaturity. The symptoms commonly attributed to heroin "withdrawal" may thus in fact be due to immaturity of the nervous system. Indeed, "when we talk about symptomatology in the baby, we should not label these babies as addicted, because there is no indication that they are." Dr. Blatman similarly urges that the term "withdrawal symptoms" as applied to the babies of addicts "is an unsatisfactory term, which we should eliminate."

Dr. Blatman warns particularly against "standing orders" to administer opiates or other drugs to these babies; where standing orders are in effect, "many of these babies are often 'snowed under' by depressant medication starting soon after birth." While hyperirritable babies born to addicted mothers (like those born to nonaddicted mothers) may need medication--- phenobarbital, chlorpromazine, or in some instances paregoric (an opiate)--- the treatment should be individualized and matched to each baby's need. 45

In sum, many babies born to addicted mothers are born in excellent health; others suffer a handicap. How much of this handicap is traceable to the heroin and how much to malnutrition, infection, and other adverse factors has not been determined.

 

[neversickanymore]

If you are addicted to drugs then use birth control

 

[S.J.B.]

If you are addicted to drugs then use birth control

Does this apply to coffee? What about cigarettes?

 

[neversickanymore]

Yeah, women should not smoke cigarettes when pregnant and should limit caffeine to a reasonable dose. If It were me who was pregnant I would clean up right away. If I was unable to do this then I would abort the pregnancy. (not for cigarettes but the inabilty for someone to stop smoking for eight months is pretty telling) I can shoot you the email of my child as I kinda think this level of discussion is better suited for a grade schooler.

 

[NotaCaterpillar]

I had my daughter on methadone and she was in the hospital for six weeks when she was born. It broke my heart to know she was in wd, but I didnt want to chance a miscarriage or try detoxing off methadone when pregnant. I had reg OB appts when pregnant, had social workers up my ass the whole time even though I wasnt using aside from mmt.

My daughters two now and smart, healthy, active, and the happiest child youve ever seen. Some people have babies born on mmt that dont go through wd. It isnt dose dependent either. You can be on a high dose and they dont go through it, and a low dose and they do.

That being said, ill be off methadone before I get pregnant again.

 

[Tommyboy]

I was saying in some other thread how I figured there would be so many children born dependent on benzos nowadays since it was so widely prescribed in the 2000's.

 

[neversickanymore]

NotaCaterpillar Im so glad that your daughter is doing amazing. children are the shit arent they

As Catierpillar was saying though there appears to be a differences in what chemicals or differences between individuals as to what transfers between the placental barrier and what doesn't so maybe benzos dont make it through?

 

[opi8]

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a lot worse than ANY opiate. I don't hear anyone in this thread complaining about alcoholics getting pregnant, nope, just us lousy junkies.

 

[neversickanymore]

alright since I'm a junky then.. drinking alcohol is worse than most, if not all other drugs, in pregnancy and life IMO.. but in reality sober is they way to go.. addiction isn't defined by the inability to get clean.. its defined by the inability to stay clean.. but eight months.. come on now!!!

 

[RedRum OG]

Thank god you don't form memories till you're 3 or 4....

I hear so many women at the methadone clinic talk about this. Shocking. It seems like everyday one of them is giving birth and weaning the baby on a short taper of methadone

 

[oldirtybizza]

Can't people stop with the inappropriate spawning already! I'm at that age where a lot of my peers are having kids. They've waited til the opportune time when they are financially and professionally stable, this seems logical.
I've been through my share of opiate woes but at no stage have I thought this is a good time to have a kid. If I can't even be responsible enough to get my own shit sorted well that just means I shouldn't be having children in the first place.

I recall watching a poor young father from the Philippines who couldn't feed his 7 kids after the typhoon, I sympathize but I just don't understand why people worldwide who are already struggling burden themselves with so many children. I've been to many developing countries and it's the same scene young parents with hordes of barefoot neglected children living in poverty, begging for money to feed their kids.
It seems like to some having children isn't a choice.

 

[opi8]

I agree that a mother should not be putting her baby at risk in any way. If she knows she is pregnant and then gets a drug addiction, well, she obviously does not have a mind that should be reproduced and given to a child anyway.

The reason I posted in this thread is because a lot of people are forgetting that the most harmful drug in the world is legal. Alcohol. Nobody has brought it up. I know people with fetal alcohol syndrome. I know people who were addicted to opiates, both legal and illegal. I know their children. I also know that because of this bullshit war on drugs (war on ILLEGAL drugs), that people do not understand that nicotine, caffeine and ethanol are drugs. I know that alcohol is killing a lot more people than any other illegal drug. I know that opiate withdrawal cannot kill you, me or a baby. I do know that alcohol causes permanent brain damage to you, me and babies.

I just hate the hypocrisy, coming from drug users. "Opiate users shouldn't have children". Right, so you always plan to have children, birth control is 100% effective, right? Show me where a child whose parents were using opiates has suffered. A study. A personal fucking jouirnal, I don't care. Then, compare the amount (if any) with alcohol abuse. Now you can tell me that I'm biased because I am a junkie, that's fine. But I'm also an alcoholic - because this drug war has made me that way. I lost the point several sentences ago, but fuck people who judge drug users on a drug forum because their preferred drug is different and fuck the world for encouraging drug abuse (alcohol) while trying to instill in the public an attitude that hates drug users (which seems to be working, this thread is a great example).

 

[oldirtybizza]

Show me where a child whose parents were using opiates has suffered. A study. A personal fucking jouirnal, I don't care. Then, compare the amount (if any)

"if any" ? Dude downplaying things much.. I'm sure plenty of children have suffered big-time with a parent addicted to heroin.

When did anyone say " opiate users shouldn't have children" ? I think the general consensus has just been that women should avoid drug addiction whilst pregnant, I don't see why alcohol is relevant to here.
The dangers of FAS are well known and there is plenty of stigma against drinking during pregnancy , just because opiates endanger the baby less doesn't validate their use in this situation.

 

[opi8]

I'm not aware of any studies that have proper controls which have shown opiates causing harm to babies. From my understanding, harm comes from withdrawing from opiates. What difference does diacetylmorphine make over oxycodone or morphine? Because it's an "illegal drug" that was another point I was trying to make.

Alcohol is relevant because it's a drug, but not viewed as one in the eyes of society, and even here on Bluelight it seems.

 

[S.J.B.]

I'm not aware of any studies that have proper controls which have shown opiates causing harm to babies.

Yeah everyone just completely ignored that excerpt I posted pointing this out.