Thousands of infants suffer from opioid, cocaine and meth addiction before they were born. Once the pregnant mother is taking these drugs during her entire pregnancy, the unborn child will surely pay the consequences during birth. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome is still being fought by health care professionals as most hospitals lack the appropriate facilities for Neonatal Intensive Care Units.
Statistics reveal that a baby is born dependent on opioids every 19 minutes. Reuters mentioned that most opioid addicted infants are born from mothers who are highly addicted to drugs, thus it was passed on to them during pregnancy.
In 2015, CBS released a report wherein it was mentioned that the problem on opioid and heroine related birth complications continually increased. Center of Disease and Control cited that heroin use made a drastic climb to 150 percent in a span of six years.
Babies born with opioid dependency are known to have Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. These babies go through a drastic phase of withdrawal. Babies would go through convulsions, clenching his muscles and shortness of breath. As the drug war escalates, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome skyrocketed in numbers as well. Most of the victims are new born babies wherein their mothers took drugs while they were pregnant.
Babies hooked on opioid are being monitored for years after they are discharged from the hospital. In 2014, only one of 27,000 infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome are properly diagnosed by the health care professionals as per NPR.
According to doctors in charge of cases for children with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, the condition does not have a long term effect to infants that were not severely affected. As the infant is discharged however, the mother's credibility to care for her child is highly questioned.
It is important for pregnant mothers to be cautious as to what comes into their bodies during pregnancy. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome is not only limited to the mother's opioid addition, but to other narcotics drugs as well.
