Tag: mothers with addiction

Nurses Condemn Criminal Charges Against Mothers With Addiction

The threat of arrest and sentencing has created what the AAN dubbed a “culture of fear and barriers” for pregnant and nursing mothers.

The Washington, D.C.-based American Academy of Nursing (AAN) called for an end to criminal and civil charges against pregnant women and mothers based on drug use.

The 2,700-member organization outlined its position in a press release, which stated that legal action against pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) has resulted in arrests and jail time that have deterred them from seeking essential health services.

The AAN’s policy outlined recommendations to help reverse that trend, including increasing funding for mental health agencies and training for nurses in regard to substance use disorder.

In the press release, the AAN noted that the opioid epidemic has placed substance use disorder in the national spotlight, but in the absence of a “public health response,” expecting and parenting women with SUD have been subjected to criminal and civil actions, including arrests and incarceration.

Currently, a number of states, including Tennessee, Alabama, Wisconsin, Ohio and Kentucky have laws in place that consider drug use during pregnancy as grounds for child abuse protection.

The threat of arrest and sentencing has created what the AAN dubbed a “culture of fear and barriers” for pregnant and nursing mothers, who may avoid “essential health services” over concerns of prosecution.

As the press release noted, “Early entry into maternity care plays a vital role in long-term health and social outcomes,” a notion supported by scientific research that shows that preschool-aged children (3-5 years old) with supportive mothers show significant increases in areas of the brain related to learning, memory and emotional regulation.

To facilitate that crucial level of interaction, the AAN recommended a shift in public health policy away from punitive measures toward mothers and in the direction of recovery and treatment.

The academy offered policy suggestions for federal and state agencies, as well as for individual providers. These included increased funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and expanded access to its Clinical Guidance for Treating Pregnant and Parenting Women with Opioid Use Disorder and Their Infants, as well as increased funding for community-based treatment programs for women with SUD and their children.

Additionally, the AAN called on nurses to make sure that clinical assessments of women with SUD are “accurate and comprehensive,” and to keep providers in concert with a “therapeutic health justice approach.”

“The Academy is helping to shape the conversation around providing care to pregnant and parenting women and reducing the stigma of SUDs in the age of the opioid epidemic,” the press release’s authors concluded.

View the original article at thefix.com

19 April 2019
Dwyane Wade's Mom Pays Tribute To Son For Loyalty During Addiction Battle

In a commercial marking his career achievements, Wade’s mother thanks her son for never giving up on her when she was in active addiction.

Dwyane Wade played his final game in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday. The NBA star, who led the Miami Heat to their first NBA Championship in franchise history, is retiring at 37.

But behind Wade’s success is his mother Jolinda. In a new Budweiser commercial marking Wade’s retirement, she thanks Wade for the impact he’s had on her life. Jolinda, an ordained Baptist minister, came a long way from her life as a chronic drug-using, struggling mother on the south side of Chicago.

“When you bought your mother that church, you don’t even understand the lives that you changed,” she said. “You were the joy of my life. But I was dropping the ball.”

Wade gave his mother her own church in 2008, symbolizing her redemption from her past. “I respect my mother so much, from the life that she used to live and to see her today in the life that she lives. I’m so proud of her,” Wade said at the time. “Everybody thinks I’m the miraculous story in the family. I think she is. I think what I’ve done means I’ve been very blessed, but she’s been more than blessed. She’s been anointed.”

Growing up, Wade and his siblings witnessed their mother use and sell drugs, abuse alcohol, and disappear for “long periods.”

“We would sit on the porch some nights, hoping she would just walk around that corner,” Wade said in a past interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I kept my ear to the window, hoping I heard her voice or I’d walk myself, hoping to see her.”

Tragil Wade, Dwyane’s older sister, helped raise her brother in their mother’s absence. She recalled fearing the worst whenever she’d hear about someone dying in nearby abandoned buildings. “I can’t even tell you what it was like,” she said in 2008 at the opening of her mother’s church. “It’s beyond words.”

Jolinda’s addictions landed her in jails, halfway houses and foreclosed homes, according to the Washington Post. She once nearly died from shooting up an unknown substance.

In 1994, she was arrested for possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell. She recalled the flurry of emotions she felt when her son came to visit her in jail. “I seen the look on his face, like ‘Why is my Momma behind there? What’s going on?’ He did not understand why I was behind that glass, and I was so mad.”

Jolinda continued on this path until 2001, when she finally had a change of heart during a church service with her daughter Tragil. At the time, she was on the run after vacating her jail sentence during a work-release program. Wade was a sophomore playing basketball at Marquette University. Jolinda turned herself in, and was released after serving nine months in prison.

While she was in prison, she became a devout Christian and dreamed of being a pastor.

In the commercial, Jolinda thanks her son for never giving up on her.

“That day that I just couldn’t do it no more was the day that I was going to have to turn myself in. And I seen the tears just fall from your eyes. Your momma went down a road, Dwyane, that I didn’t ever think I’d come back from. But on that road, I noticed you kept showing up. And you’d come and see about me. And because you believed in me, when I got out of prison I was a different woman.”

In his interview with Oprah, Wade expressed the respect that he had for his mother, no matter what she was going through. “I never gave up on her. Never blamed her. Because that was her life, her journey, her path. Without that path, I’m not who I am today.”

View the original article at thefix.com

11 April 2019
New Bill Targets Pregnant Women With Addiction

“This bill’s intent is to protect babies, period,” said the Tennessee bill’s original sponsor.

A bill that calls for the punishment of women who use drugs while pregnant is being introduced to the Tennessee legislature.

House Bill 1168 was recently filed by Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver (R-Lancaster) and Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma). The bill states that if a woman uses an illegal narcotic while pregnant and if the child is born harmed or drug-dependent, the mother could be charged with assault.

The bill does allow that if the woman completes an addiction recovery program, the charges may be lessened.

The term “addicted babies” is used in the bill but is considered inaccurate and stigmatizing.

Dr. Jana Burson, an opioid addiction treatment specialist and outspoken advocate for methadone and buprenorphine, explains the issue: “According to our definition of addiction… you have to have the psychological component of craving or obsession. By definition infants are not able to experience addiction.”

“This bill’s intent is to protect babies, period,” State Rep. Weaver said. “The number of babies born addicted to drugs, it has not decreased. It has exponentially increased.”

Voices raised against the bill include Erika Lathon, public relations manager of Addiction Campuses. “We believe that perhaps the bill is well-intentioned, we all want to compel pregnant women who have an addiction to reach out and get treatment and to get help to get into an effective program, but we believe this law could really do the opposite.”

Lathon would like to see money invested into addiction treatment rehabilitation centers and other drug addiction outreach programs. “Rather than throwing them into jail and then giving them a bunch of legal problems to deal with, a child going into foster care. All of these things is going to cost taxpayers more money on the back end,” Lathon pointed out.

“A pregnant woman who is battling an addiction is already facing a tremendous amount of stigma and has a number of problems to deal with and then you add on top of that the possibility of her being prosecuted and thrown into jail, we believe that is going to push them further away, make the woman less likely to say, ‘Yes I have a problem, yes I’m addicted, yes I need help,’” Lathon said.

WTHR reported that if the bill is made into law, it will go into effect on July 1.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 February 2019
Can Pre-Birth Opioid Exposure Lead To Learning Disorders?

A new study examined the potential link between pre-birth opioid exposure and developmental issues.

Children born to mothers using opioids may grow up to demonstrate difficulty learning, a new study has found.

The study examined the potential long-term issues for infants born to mothers who used opioids while pregnant, according to NBC News.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that one in seven children affected by a mother using opioids needed to be placed in special education classrooms for various issues, including developmental issues and speech delay. In comparison, one in 10 children who were not exposed to opioids before birth required the same.

About 7,200 children from Tennessee’s Medicaid program were involved in the study, ranging in age from 3 to 8 years old. Of those children, nearly 2,000 were born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS)—or, in simpler terms, withdrawal from opioids due to a mother’s use.

Tennessee has been greatly affected by the opioid epidemic, which is reflected in the number of infants exposed to opioids before birth. In 1999, it was one per 1,000 infants. But in 2015, it was 13 per 1,000.

Researchers said they took specific factors into account like birth weight and mother’s education and tobacco use, but that those did not change the results.

According to study co-author Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, the results make sense, as other studies have determined that there are brain differences in children affected by opioids while in utero.

Dr. Mary-Margaret Fill, lead author and a researcher with Tennessee’s health department, tells NBC News that affected children “are definitely not doomed. There are great programs and services that exist to help these children and their families. We just have to make sure they get plugged in.”

Because the study was focused in Tennessee, it’s not clear if the results are similar in other U.S. states, and no other studies with the same focus have been conducted in the country.

However, a similar study was conducted in Australia last year, and found that children exposed to opioids before birth had worse academic scores in seventh grade in comparison to others their age. The U.S. study did not examine academic performance.

Dr. Matthew Davis, co-chair of the Opioid Task Force at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, tells the Chicago Tribune that the study results should serve as a sign that opioid use affects a wide range.

“There’s a sense that the opioid epidemic is somebody else’s problem, but it affects more than those who take the drugs,” Davis said. “I hope the study is a wake-up call, so people understand that this epidemic is a community-level, multigenerational problem that will only grow if we don’t take the proper steps to address it.”

View the original article at thefix.com

7 September 2018
How Do Babies Born To Mothers With Addiction Fare Over Time?

A study explored the long-term development of babies that were born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Every 15 minutes, a baby is born dependent on opioids in the United States. The number of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which causes the babies to experience withdrawal-like symptoms, has risen sharply during the opioid crisis, but researchers say that parents of children who are exposed to drugs in utero have reason to be optimistic.

“Most of these children do well, and they do within the normal range,” Dr. Stephanie Merhar, a neonatologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, told NPR.

Merhar led a study that examined the development of 87 two-year-olds who were born with NAS.

They found that about 3% of the children had a lazy eye, and some scored just below average for cognitive, language and development skills.

Overall, however, researchers found that opioids weren’t as harmful to a child’s development as other substances, including alcohol.

“It’s not like the fetal alcohol syndrome problem, where it really affects the brain,” Merhar said. “[Children with fetal alcohol syndrome] are at high risk of mental retardation and there are significant developmental delays.”

This is reassuring for parents of opioid-exposed infants, especially since mothers using medication-assisted treatment like methadone are generally encouraged to continue the treatment even once they know they are pregnant.

However, Dr. Jonathan Davis, chief of newborn medicine at Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center and chair of a Neonatal Advisory Committee for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), says that more research is needed into the long-term prognosis for babies exposed to opioids in utero. He would like to see a national registry of babies born dependent on opioids so that researchers can track their long-term outcomes.

“How are these children going to function when they get to school?” said Davis. “How are these children going to speak, socialize and interact?”

One of the most important indications for a child’s outcome can be whether their mother gets treatment for her opioid use, said Dr. Lauren Jansson, director of pediatrics center for addiction and pregnancy at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.

“The one solid thing we can say about children who are exposed to substances prenatally is that their mothers need treatment,” said Jansson.

Amanda Williammee is one of those mothers, and she has been lucky enough to connect with a North Carolina program that allows her two-year-old daughter to be in daycare while she gets treatment and counseling. Hendrée Jones is executive director of the program, called Horizons.

Jones said that many of the mothers in the program have a history of trauma and unhealthy family structures in addition to their substance abuse. That can make it nearly impossible for them to know how to parent.

“There’s often times an unrealistic expectation by society,” she said. “They’re supposed to automatically know how ‘be good mothers’—how to be nurturing mothers. That’s like trying to teach somebody algebra when they’ve never even had addition.”

However, Jones recently led a three-year study of children exposed to opioids in utero, and said that these mothers have reason to be optimistic.

“The children through time tended to score within the normal range of the tests that we had,” Jones said.

View the original article at thefix.com

2 August 2018