Drug Addiction Affects Relationships With A Mom And Baby

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Drug addiction is a serious problem in society and it affects relationships with a mom and baby. Newborns who test positive for drugs at birth should not be sent home with mom, if the mom has a drug use record. The statistics of drug use and the effects that the babies have. Because the babies can not stay in the hospital forever, they have to go somewhere.
Many people think that drug use during pregnancy is not a big problem, but it is. For many moms it starts with a painkiller. Someone offers a person a painkiller, their body likes it, so they go to their doctor and say their back hurts. They get their painkiller and then it gets too expensive, so they switch to heroin because it is very cheap. Finally they try to stop but they can not. Other …show more content…

Who decides where the baby goes? The family court judge decides whether the baby should go home with the mom or go to foster care with another family. The way the judge decides is based on the results of the mom’s and baby’s drug tests, and the mom’s records and the prescriptions she has filled out. If the mom went to the dentist and said that she had a toothache, filled out one prescription, and did not fill any out since then she is probably okay to take the baby home. If the mom has used drugs multiple times, she can not take the baby home and the baby goes to a foster family. The only way the mom can get the baby back is if she can show that she is going to therapy and is using methadone or suboxone to wean her drug addiction down. In some cases the mom gets the baby back and then does not show up for therapy, the baby goes back to foster care, and it is very common (Vogt). Maggie Vogt, an RN who works at a foster care clinic in Cardinal Glennon said, “ Very often from the time the child leaves the NICU to the time we see them at the clinic, they may have already been moved a couple of times when they have withdrawal issues and the new foster parents have little or no knowledge about what they are looking at with these babies.” Vogt is one of the people who works at Fostering Healthy Children Clinic monitors the baby for three months after discharge then their primary doctor all the way till the end of the age

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