NLHS doesn’t track the numbers, but health care providers say they’re seeing an increase in the number of babies born with drugs like opioids and cocaine in their system, and that’s a concern, especially when the babies are removed from their mothers.
The division chief of Newborn Care at the Janeway Children’s Hospital, and associate professor of pediatrics at Memorial University, Dr. Anne Drover, says the health authority stopped tracking the official numbers in 2021, but they’ve been noticing a growing trend.
She estimates about 40 newborn babies are born each year with opioids in their system, and another ten or so are born with other substances as well.
She says many mothers are doing well on Methadone or Suboxone, with healthy pregnancies and delivering full-term babies.
The concern, says Drover, is that some mothers are showing up in labour having had no pre-natal care. Many babies exposed to drugs go through withdrawal symptoms, with some having to go to the neonatal unit, and others being taken into care.
She says she understands why that happens, because it’s a complex problem, but it takes away some important early interactions with a mother including skin-on-skin contact and breast feeding.
Drover says that often compounds the problem, especially when foster care is provided far from the mother’s location. She says appropriate support must be provided in the community to allow moms and babies to stay together.
“If the baby is going into foster care, the mom also needs ‘foster care’” says Drover. There needs to be a wraparound program for mom and baby says Drover to keep them together.
“This is costing the system a fortune. These babies are the future workers, and the better we can prepare them for school, the workforce, for functioning in society, the better it is for all of us, and these women deserve that.”
