Number of US newborns with drug withdrawal triples

Number of US newborns with drug withdrawal triples

news.yahoo.com

Disturbing new research says the number of U.S. babies born with signs of opiate drug withdrawal has tripled in a decade because of a surge in pregnant women's use of legal and illegal narcotics, including Vicodin, OxyContin and heroin, researchers say. It is the first national study of the problem.
Weaning infants from these drugs can take weeks or months and often requires a lengthy stay in intensive care units. Hospital charges for treating these newborns soared from $190 million to $720 mil

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Headlines like this leave me upset. Not only are these babies fighting for their lives, the immense cost of treatment put upon the taxpayers.

Weaning infants from these drugs can take weeks or months and often requires a lengthy stay in intensive care units. Hospital charges for treating these newborns soared from $190 million to $720 million between 2000 and 2009, the study found.

Yes the woman was on prescribed painkillers but still, legal or illegal, if you are taking drugs do not plan to have a baby not saying this was planned).

I have to wonder why this woman would put herself out there like this. My first reaction was not a kind one towards her. Was she is doing it to get the story out? I'm sure these statistics would have come out anyway.


news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by UFO1414


Yeah, but who in their right mind would engage in any type of family planning?

I mean, when that urge strikes, damn everything and go for it just like the animals!

Okay, I'm being silly now.

I'm letting Darwin drive.

reply to post by UFO1414


well to be fair if she had lived in a state where they take your baby for being addicted to drugs legal or otherwise the state would end up paying for that kid for the first 18 years of its life unless some one wanted to adopt a meth baby so it seems with treatment that at least the burden of raising the child does not fall on the state just my take on it i think rehabilitation is key not incarceration but im problay in the minority on this site (and as relitivly sucessfull adult born of a crack whore mother the problems for this kid are just beginning unless the mom sobers up_

I heard this on the radio this morning and thought such an increase was strange given that illegal drug use has not risen in kind.

Then the report mentioned it was due to prescription pills mostly. Makes sense seeing as how they're both over-prescribed and wildly popular among addicts.

why are SO Many americans hooked on illicit drugs for LIFE

esp in the MILITARY... and even the celebs role models and possibly officials/leaders.

united states of junkies

no wonder we go and screw the rest of the world over!

reply to post by UFO1414


I remember sitting in Lamaz(?) classes listening to the nurse tell us all that opiates are okay and they donated a whole class to this. I was floored.
I asked if opiates and effect smooth muscle tissue? answer yes! I asked do heroin addicts get constipated because smooth muscle tissue ceases function under opiates? YES! I asked is the baby pushed out by smooth muscle tissue lining the area that pushes the baby out? YES! So how is this beneficial? The mom feels no child birth and you are a man and you don't know what it is like! SO why does the birth process in majority lead to a C-SECTION? the OPIATES! Direct correlation my friends!