HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – They\u2019re the tiniest and most innocent victims of the heroin addiction crisis but it doesn\u2019t spare them their suffering.<\/p>\n
They cry relentlessly at a disturbing pitch and can\u2019t sleep. Their muscles get so tense their bodies feel hard. They suck hungrily but lack coordination to successfully feed. Or they lack an appetite. They sweat, tremble, vomit and suffer diarrhea. Some claw at their faces.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s because they were born drug-dependent and are suffering the painful process of withdrawal. \u201cIt\u2019s very sad,\u201d says Dr. Christiana Oji-Mmuo, who cares for them at Penn State Hershey Children\u2019s Hospital. \u201cYou would have to see a baby in this condition to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the heroin and painkiller addiction epidemic gripping Pennsylvania and the whole country worsens, the number of babies born drug dependent has surged.\u00a0\u00a0 Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. saw two or three drug-dependent babies annually when Dr. Lauren Johnson-Robbins began working there 17 years ago. Now Geisinger cares for about twice that many per month between its neonatal intensive care unit in Danville and the NICU at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre.<\/p>\n
Penn State Children\u2019s Hospital is averaging about 20 per year, although it had cared for 18 through last June, with the final 2016 number not yet available, says Oji-Mmuo.<\/p>\n
PinnacleHealth System\u2019s Harrisburg Hospital also sees about 20 per year. That\u2019s less than a few years ago, but only because a hospital that used to transfer drug dependent babies to Harrisburg Hospital equipped itself to care for them. \u201cNow everybody is facing it and trying to deal with it one way or another,\u201d says Dr. Manny Peregrino, a neonatologist involved with their care.<\/p>\n
The babies suffer from neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, which results from exposure to opioid drugs while in the womb. An estimated 1 in 200 babies in the United States are born dependent on an opioid drug. More than half end up in a NICU, which care for unusually sick babies.<\/p>\n
In 2015, 2,691 babies received NICU care in Pennsylvania as the result of a mother\u2019s substance abuse, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. That\u2019s up from 788 in 2000, or a 242 percent increase in 15 years.<\/p>\n
Nearly all babies born to opioid-addicted moms suffer withdrawal. The severity varies. About 60 percent need an opioid such as morphine or methadone to ease them through withdrawal. These babies typically spend about 25 days in the hospital.<\/p>\n
Often, the only way to calm them is to hold them for long periods – so long that many hospitals enlist volunteer \u201ccuddlers.\u201d \u201dIt really is a whole village. Everybody pitches in,\u201d Peregrino says.<\/p>\n
Giving medications to newborns can lead to other problems, so the preference is to get them through withdrawal without it. A scale based on their symptoms is used to determine which ones need medication. In cases where withdrawal isn\u2019t so severe,<\/p>\n
symptoms can be managed by keeping the baby away from noise and bright light, cuddling them, and using devices such as mechanical swings to sooth them.<\/p>\n
Logan Keck of Carlisle feared the worst upon learning what her baby might face. The 23-year-old became addicted to heroin several years ago. She says it was prominent in her circle of high school classmates, and she became \u201cdesensitized\u201d to the danger, figuring it couldn\u2019t be as bad as some claimed.\u00a0\u00a0 Keck has been in recovery for more than two years with the help of methadone, a prescription drug used to prevent withdrawal and craving. She was a few weeks away from being fully tapered off methadone when Keck learned she was pregnant.<\/p>\n
She was told stopping methadone during pregnancy would put her at risk of miscarriage. Keck further learned her baby might be born addicted. She gave birth on Feb. 1 at Holy Spirit-Geisinger in Cumberland County.<\/p>\n
Her baby had difficulty latching on during breastfeeding and vomited milk into her lungs, but seemed fine otherwise. Keck expected she and her baby would go home soon after delivery.\u00a0 But after a few days, withdrawal became obvious. Keck knows how withdrawal feels. \u201cThat\u2019s when it really hit home for me – seeing her feel it,\u201d she says.\u00a0 Then she was hit again: she was discharged, but her baby remains in the NICU, possibly for several more weeks.<\/p>\n
The opioid addiction epidemic affects people of all backgrounds and regions – rich, poor, urban, suburban. It\u2019s prevalent in economically-stressed areas, including many of Pennsylvania\u2019s rural counties.<\/p>\n
Geisinger has found a bit of brightness within the 30-plus rural counties it serves. Some of the region\u2019s doctors realized there was little access to methadone, which is dispensed from clinics usually located in more populated areas. That meant pregnant rural women lacked access to a legal drug that could keep them away from the risks of street drugs while also getting them onto the road to recovery. So the doctors became licensed to prescribe buprenorphine, another drug that staves off withdrawal and cravings for opioids. As a result, the majority of mothers of NAS babies at Geisinger have been taking buprenorphine during pregnancy, according to Johnson-Robbins.<\/p>\n
Geisinger doctors have been pleased to find that buprenorphine, while it does cause NAS, withdrawal isn\u2019t as severe as with methadone. It also impacts another major concern surrounding NAS babies: that the mother will continue to struggle with addiction and live a lifestyle that will prevent her from properly caring for her baby. Most Geisinger moms, being in recovery for a while, are better-equipped to care for their baby.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s great concern about what happens to NAS babies after they leave the hospital. The mother might go back to heroin and become unable to properly care for her baby – there have been many news reports of addicted parents or fathers who neglected or otherwise hurt their babies, including a Pennsylvania woman who rolled over and suffocated her baby while high on opioids and other drugs. The mother might lack adequate housing or other means of having a stable home. There might be criminal activity in the home.<\/p>\n
Delaware County woman says she didn\u2019t know their whereabouts until news reports of their hospitalizations for alleged severe abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are sending children out into compromised environments,\u201d says Dr. Lori Frasier, who leads the division of child abuse paediatrics at Penn State Hershey Children\u2019s Hospital. Those babies often return to the hospital as victims of abuse or neglect, Frasier says.<\/p>\n
Another cause for worry is the fact that NAS babies can remain unusually fussy after leaving the hospital, potentially putting extra stress on a parent already dealing with the stress of addiction. \u201cWe know that crying, fussy babies can be triggers for abuse,\u201d Frasier says. Cathleen Palm, founder of the Pennsylvania-based Center for Children\u2019s Justice, said much more needs to done to provide help for mothers of NAS babies, and to monitor and protect the babies. \u201cWe have really been trying to get policy makers to understand the nuances,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Keck goes to Holy Spirit-Geisinger daily to breastfeed and hold her baby for one to two hours. Her time is limited by distance and the fact the baby\u2019s father needs their only car for work. Looking forward, Keck says she\u2019s in a stable relationship with the baby\u2019s father, who is not an addict and accompanies her to the hospital. They have family support, and a Holy Spirit program will provide additional help.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Keck\u2019s pregnancy and motherhood have taught her things that might have inspired her to make a different choice regarding heroin, including the fact it caused her newborn to suffer and forced her to go home without her baby. She agreed to be interviewed out of desire to get others to think and talk about such realities. \u201cI want people to understand it\u2019s something that\u2019s not pretty,\u201d Keck said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s important to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2017\/feb\/18\/born-addicts-opioid-babies-in-withdrawal<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – They\u2019re the tiniest and most innocent victims of the heroin addiction crisis but it doesn\u2019t spare them their suffering. They cry relentlessly at a disturbing pitch and can\u2019t sleep. Their muscles get so tense their bodies feel hard. They suck hungrily but lack coordination to successfully feed. Or they lack an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,64,34,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-use-effects-on-foetus","category-health","category-heroin-methadone","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}