Sunday, July 7, 2019

Maine’s Hospitals, and Foster Care, Beleaguered by Drug-Exposed Infants

 The baby girl was born on a Sunday.  
By Tuesday, she was suffering from opiate withdrawal. Exposed to drugs in her mother’s womb, she could not sleep. Inconsolable, her high-pitched cries racked her tiny body.
At 4 days old, a nurse administered the first dose of methadone to ease the infant’s distress. Sedated, the newborn sleeps in a darkened nursery on this drizzly spring day. Electrodes attached to her chest and fingers monitor her heart and respiratory rate.

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