Officials fear for infants born to prescription drug addicts

Officials fear for infants born to prescription drug addicts

By Steve Turnham and Amber Lyon, CNN Investigative Unit

July 27, 2011 3:13 p.m. EDT




Two-month-old Casey got a clean bill of health after her mother, Jessica, stopped using drugs late in her pregnancy.





(CNN)
-- According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, prescription drug overdose deaths in Florida are up a
staggering 265% since 2003. But it's not just the deaths that have
Florida officials worried; it's the births.

"We saw the number of
crack babies that died, and this is just another version of that,"
Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti said. "We all need to be concerned."

According
to state health records, 635 Florida babies were born addicted to
prescription drugs in the first half of 2010 alone. South Florida
doctors and intensive care nurses report an dramatic uptick in babies
born hooked on pills that their mothers abused while pregnant.

"They
go through withdrawal symptoms," said Mary Osuch, the head nurse at
Broward General Medical Center's neonatal intensive care unit. "They're
crampy, miserable. They sweat. They can have rapid breathing. Sometimes,
they can even have seizures."

According to the White House
Office on Drug Control Policy, prescription drug abuse is the nation's
fastest-growing drug problem.

Marsha Currant, who runs the Susan
B. Anthony Recovery Center near Fort Lauderdale, says prescription drug
addiction overtook crack in 2009 as the main problem afflicting the
pregnant women who are treated there.

"In the very beginning, it
was really 100% crack cocaine," said Currant, who started keeping track
of drug trends in 1995. "We see a lot more prescription drugs now."

Currant
says new mothers who are hooked on prescription drugs are often
reluctant to seek help for fear the authorities will take their babies
from them.

"We wanted to have a place where women didn't have to
chose between getting treatment and having their children go into
foster care," she said.

Compounding the problem, women who are
addicted to prescription drugs and find themselves pregnant cannot
safely go off the drugs without medical supervision. They need to be
weaned off slowly, or the baby will go into withdrawal in the womb.

At
the Susan B. Anthony Center, one mother who became hooked on
prescription drugs after her husband died says she felt her baby
suffering while she was getting clean.

"I know that I'm going
through stuff getting off the pills. So what's she going through? She
can't talk. She's just a baby," Jessica said.

Thanks to the
center, Jessica was weaned off oxycodone before her baby, Casey, was
born. But she fears the long-term effects of her drug abuse on her
daughter, who has been suffering from respiratory problems.

"I want to make sure that she doesn't hurt anymore," Jessica said. "She doesn't deserve that, because she's a princess."

Jessica graduated from the center's recovery program last week.