In April of 2013, Elizabeth Mort, of Pennsylvania, ate a bagel that was made with poppy seeds. Then she went to the hospital and gave birth to a baby girl. The staff at Jameson Hospital in Lawrence County is lucky, because when I go into labor, I always stop at Taco Bell en route, and eat as many seven layer burritos as I can before arriving at the hospital; yet when they did their wonderful drug tests on Mort, with their wonderfully inflated prices for the insurance company to cover, they used a standard of 300 nanograms per milliliter as a guideline of THC, and of otherwise being a doper, rather than the federally accepted 2000 nanograms per milliliter. This allowed the residue from the poppyseed bagel to appear in the test results. Three days later, while Mort was at home with her new daughter, social services stormed her house and took her baby away. The hospital had telephoned social services with news of a positive drug test, with no mention of the comparison of the results of said drug test to federal standards, and had thus made a false report. While it only took five days for Mort to get her daughter back, it took three years to settle the lawsuit, which was finally settled this past week. The ACLU got involved on Mort's behalf.
Why would a child be taken from a parent over a lab result that was not even current information? Why would a child be taken from a parent over a violation of a prohibition law? After all, we do not routinely remove children from the homes of people who get cited for DWI. Why is marijuana so much more important? If there was no indication of fetal distress because of drugs, why did the hospital order a test for drugs? Why did the hospital order the test without the patient's knowledge? When the test came back flagged as a false positive, why didn't the hospital discuss it with the patient immediately? Was the hospital more interested in snagging a newborn and helping the state to sell it, rather then finding out if the patient had a substance abuse problem? These are all questions that anyone of either gender planning on becoming a parent should want answered before choosing an hospital for the birth.
The ACLU insisted that Jameson Hospital and Pennsylvania come into compliance and stop harassing families, but what about your state? It's clearly time to rethink the importance of family, legalize marijuana, (no, I am NOT a cannabis indulger) or do both.
Seems while I wasn't paying attention, gov put in place some regulation to drug test the mother and the newborn. I never heard of this before. (it would be nice if an addicted mother let the doctor know what she'd been taking before the poor baby developed withdrawl symptoms) Kind of like putting silver nitrate in their eyes to prevent gono...protect the few and punish many.
ReplyDeleteWhenever the legislation was passed, it was done AFTER my stepkids were born. They could actually have benefitted from such testing. The mom in this article was only eating poppy seeds and her baby did not have any problems with drug withdrawls, which is why she and the baby were home three days after the birth. Had the mother actually been an addict, I doubt if she would have had a leg to stand on in this case; except that she and the baby should not have gone home together without a parenting plan in place. Silver nitrate is no longer used on newborns.
DeleteI was pretty sure it was standard procedure. They have you sign a disclosure agreement thinking that basically allots them to do whatever they want test wise. Also at the visits you have preceding your delivery you give a urine sample to be tested for. Things like protien and such but they also run a six strip drug test on it. They never mention that either. While I don't agree with the fact they hardly ever mention to you that your being drug tested I find it a positive practice. Only. Most moms I know that failed the test after delivery didn't get to take the kids home. They were taken straight from the hospital. They test the kids because drug users aren't known for being forthcoming and they need to know immediately should any complications arise from the substance abuse.newborns going through method or opiate withdrawel isn't pretty the fact she failed for just weed and had to go through all this nonsense is ridiculous but I imagine its more a concern of neglect then anything.
ReplyDeleteActually, any test a doctor, hospital, or lab runs, they must get the patient's permission to run. The insurance company and the patient must receive a detailed statement of everything in the bill.
DeleteIt actually is NOT standard procedure. I bore three children and lost one at five months. Never was I tested for drugs. Since the drugs which tend to do the most damage are prescription drugs, how useful would testing for things like marijuana, which has not been proven to cause ANY harm in utero to a fetus, actually be? And hospitals all of America send newborns home with alcoholic mothers every day. In fact, social services allows alcoholics to foster children who are taken away from natural parents for other reasons. And this mom did not abuse or use any drugs.......she ate a bakery product with perfectly legal poppy seeds! If the hospital thought she had a drug problem, why didn't the doctor talk to her about recovery?????
Do you really agree with the practice of taking a newborn away from a natural mother immediately after birth over marijuana? I don't. Not over poppyseed bagels, either. Being a new mom is challenging enough. Why make bonding, breastfeeding, parenting, and life harder for mother and child?
All of this nonsense about marijuana is nothing more than political posturing. It's time to start leaving children alone.