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Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Painkillers Behind Surge of Drug-Addicted Babies

Less than a month old, Savannah Dannelley scrunches her tiny face into a scowl as a nurse gently squirts a dose of methadone into her mouth.

The infant is going through drug withdrawal and is being treated with the same narcotic prescribed for her mother to fight addiction to powerful prescription painkillers.

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.

The number of newborns with withdrawal symptoms increased from a little more than 1 per 1,000 babies sent home from the hospital in 2000 to more than 3 per 1,000 in 2009, the study found. More than 13,000 U.S. infants were affected in 2009, the researchers estimated.

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11 comments:

  1. Them boys that make the pills we be coming for you one day.

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  2. Its a systamatic irradication of the problem, be efficient is my motto.

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  3. You hurt babies you should be hurt yourself ten fold.

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  4. Back in the day it was H and you stuck a needle in your arm,sick huh. Now you swallow a pill with some OJ. No social stigma. Both JUNKIES. Its OK now because you aint shotting up on the floor of some damn piss filled bathroom floor. Same thing, keep it up and you will find that piss floor.

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  5. Brother if that aint rock bottom what is, Death thats what. Its very hard to care about someone over some time that is hell bent on killing themselves. You say do somewhere else because you cant be part of my life and around the ones I love if you are a fkn JUNKIE, go away before I hurt you. Building over the lsat five years I have tryed but to friends have failed me and I have to say bye-bye JUNKY. It hurts me but I have other people that I am responsible for. Your not welcome here anymore. Tough love huh, bet it hurt me more then them.

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  6. For a minute anyway.

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  7. I have adopted one of these babies.....we are lucky and blessed but so sad to read these statistics

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  8. You can not save everyone, save the babies. They are tommorow.

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  9. Been down that road once myself. Big A no dope we dont talk about the ig A round here. It done matter and never did.

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  10. Someone has to fill the void.

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  11. junkie moms and babies in withdrawal have been around a looong time. Nothing new here whether or not the drug is a script.

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