Pregnant Addicts Help

Backstage: Lynn of National Advocates for Pregnant Women Responds

Wednesday, May 02, 2012 -- 4:00 AM

Lynn M. Paltrow, J.D., Founder and Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) responds backstage to the recent USA Today article about a study conducted by The Journal of the American Medical Association, which said that "the number of babies born addicted to the class of drugs that includes prescription painkillers has nearly tripled in the past decade."

Lynn says, "These studies are often initial research, they are often reported in very alarmist and scary ways. With regard to how much care babies of addicted moms need and how much it costs, there is lot of research that says if you allow these moms to hold their babies and have skin-to-skin contact, the amount of care they need sometimes disappears altogether." She continues, "So, the rush to label these moms and talk about their babies as if they all need this kind of care simply isn't true."

Lynn says "this is not a case for panic."

She adds, "We may have a real problem. There may be more doctors prescribing opiates to women. This may not be a good practice. But we know these kids can be healthy. We know there is treatment and we know respecting the moms and babies and letting them have contact is the best thing we can do to reduce the costs of care."



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