Some pregnancy rights advocates argue screening may lead to punishment or loss of custody rather than treatment and sobriety.īut Kirchhubel disagrees. The American Medical Association also endorses universal screening. To help stem the tide, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials are calling for verbal drug screening followed by a urine test if warranted. Nationally, one drug-dependent baby is born every hour, according to the latest national statistics from a 2012 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which showed incidence nearly tripled between 20. Watch Video: Video | How one new mother got clean Vermont saw its rate of drug-dependent infants rise from 3 per 1,000 deliveries to 26 per 1,000 in nine years, while Florida's rate more than tripled in five years. Those in Tennessee rose tenfold, to 672, between 19 - and already exceed 700 this year. Hospitalizations for the condition in Kentucky exploded from 28 in 2000 to 955 in 2013. Growing support for universal screening is a sign of how big the problem has become. "We need to do all we can to prevent this." "When a child's first days in this world are in agony, that certainly should be a concern to all of us," said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. 27.Īs the number of drug-dependent babies skyrockets, prominent groups of doctors, health officials and drug-control professionals are pushing to have all pregnant women screened for substance abuse so that the nation's opioid epidemic isn't passed on to so many young victims. It raged on, and she briefly turned to heroin before entering drug treatment early in her pregnancy with Isaiah, born Sept. The 31-year-old mother of four from Louisville abused pain pills for much of her pregnancy with her 3-year-old son Johnny, hiding her addiction from her obstetrician even when asked about drug use. Ashley Kirchhubel says only the grace of God protected her two youngest children from being born into the agony of drug withdrawal.
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