Amairani Salinas was 32 weeks pregnant with her fourth child in 2023 when doctors at a Texas hospital discovered that her baby no longer had a heartbeat. As they prepped her for an emergency cesarean section, they gave her midazolam, a benzodiazepine commonly prescribed to keep patients calm. A day later, the grieving mother was cradling her stillborn daughter when a social worker stopped by her room to deliver another devastating blow: Salinas was being reported to child welfare authorities
What happened to Salinas and Villanueva are far from isolated incidents. Across the country, hospitals are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those very same substances on subsequent drug tests, an investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal has found.
Why are hospitals drug-testing pregnant women without their consent?
Because in red states, cruelty is the point.
Yup. Can’t let beds in the for profit prisons go cold. Other wise the prisons CEO might have to spend only 199 days on vacation instead of the customary 200.
The article mentions it… TL;DR: War on Drugs
Hospital drug testing of pregnant women, which began in the 1980s and spread rapidly during the opioid epidemic, was intended in part to help identify babies who might experience withdrawal symptoms and need extra medical care. Federal law requires hospitals to alert child welfare agencies anytime such babies are born. But a previous investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal found that the relatively inexpensive, pee-in-a-cup tests favored by many hospitals are highly susceptible to false positives, errors and misinterpretation — and many hospitals have failed to put in place safeguards that would protect patients from being reported over faulty test results.
was intended in part to help identify babies who might experience withdrawal symptoms
That was the stated reason to get public buy in. The real reason was the same as the rest of the war on drugs, to keep black people incarcerated so slavery can continue per the 14th amendment.
Lol, yeah, that started reason doesn’t hold up well. Your basic urine drug screen (UDS) will flag benzos (midazolam in this article), natural opiates (not fentanyl and those derivatives), cocaine, barbiturates, marijuana, amphetamines, and I think that’s it. The only ones likely to cause fetal withdrawal are benzos and opiates. Works well enough for benzos, but withdrawals are pretty rare. The most common are opiates, but the most common opiates won’t show up on the UDS. So why use it?
Citations Needed did an episode on the crack baby moral panic, but couldn’t find it now.
Edit: I think it was this one but I’m not entirely sure:
Citations Needed: Episode 39: From Cradle to Courtroom: How The Media Stacks the Deck Against “Defendants”Episode webpage: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/citationsneeded/CN39_20180606_live_court_watch_nyc.mp3
Yeah, there was no crack baby epidiemic for starters…
Citations needed uses heavy sarcasm. Though I don’t recall the episode, I’m 100% they are highlighting the fact that there was not.
They talked about that, how the article that started the panic had to be retracted, but it didn’t mattered at that point
As tends to be the case with racist fearmongering.
That’s silly. 99% of the time, a drug addict is not fit to be a parent. Depending on the drug, even breastfeeding the baby will cause it to OD. It’s perfectly reasonable to get child services involved if the mother tests positive for illicit drugs.
Now, what’s ridiculous is getting child services involved because a patient tested positive to a drug you gave them, unless there’s other obvious signs of drug abuse.
That’s silly. 99% of the time, a drug addict is not fit to be a parent.
Do you include functioning alcoholics in that group, or just people who use the ‘bad’ drugs?
Yes, I do.
Your 99% of addicts stat is made up war on drugs bullshit by the way, and you clearly don’t know what a functioning alcoholic is if you think they can’t be parents.
For example some addicts are able to keep their shit together during work hours and evenings but use alcohol as a coping mechanism when their responsibilities are done. They are still addicts, but in their spare time.
A lot of other addicts are similar, addicted to pain meds or who use weed as a coping mechanism but outside of work and care hours.
When you have children, you don’t have spare time.
What in the HIPPA violation
Its not a catch all thing to hide behind.
Honestly, it’s much of a muchness, but for the sake of accuracy: It was the fetus that was tested, not the mother
Wait what? What’s going on in the US
As a nation we are still mad at those uppity women for voting and wearing pants.
Let’s be fair, some are also mad if they don’t wear pants.
And then theirs me, who wants to wear my pants and they don’t fit.
Too much. And most of it is bad…
Pls send help
It’s a shitshow and I’m afraid it’s about to get a lot worse.
what’s the worst a guy with a partially eaten brain can do?
I actually dont want to find out.
in that case, I have bad news
Ah, the USA. I wish that didn’t make sense :-(
And Texas in particular
well it doesn’t
A 2022 study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital found that 91% of women given fentanyl in their epidurals tested positive for it afterward.
wait but what about the 9%?
tests aren’t 100% accurate.
It’s probably a split between that and people who naturally metabolize opiates faster due to a genetic variation.
it’s a conspiracy!
Maybe they bought fake pee on the black market to ensure they’d receive the medical care they’re already paying for.
I really fear for the future of my female loved ones and women in this country in general. Will my older sister who is currently pregnant be subject to this violation of human rights? Will it also happen to my wife when we get around to having kids? Will my younger sister who is only in high school be forced to abandon her educational aspirations because of “societal pressure”? A revolution is in order.
Farming kids and the moms for the system
Consider journalists have to sensationalize their reports. -It’s their bread and butter.
Medical professionals are mandated reporters. Their job and well being is on the line if they do not report. Blaming them and not the investigating bodies (if they’re even guilty) is ignorant and irresponsible.
I don’t think many mothers want responsibilities for infants when on and coming off the drugs either. Not knowing better while on them might have triggered some protective measures.
It’s good to consider situations before jumping the gun and getting people killed.
One of the considerations should be, “I just gave this person a drug and they tested positive afterwards.”
Unless there’s other evidence of active drug use, the only assumption should be that it’s positive because of the drugs you gave them.
Just take the blood sample before administering the drugs?
I only read the comments, but my impression is that the drugs were given before c section and it was the newborn that was tested and not the mother.
It’s possible the form listed the drugs she was on, but the social worker didn’t know it was their job to figure out which results to ignore.
I’ve literally seen a Texas judge - who not only presumably court ordered drug tests regularly, but was also an ex-nurse - not understand how drug tests work. She assumed the lab would eliminate prescription-caused positives from the results. It took subpoenaing the tech who administered the test - a person in the same courthouse - to take the stand and tell the judge “we just list what the test found and what meds the person said they were taking, it’s someone else’s job to cross reference the two” before the judge stopped assuming the person on prescription Adderall was a meth head.
If an ex-nurse who deals with drug tests on a nearly daily basis doesn’t understand how they work, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it turned out that a social worker misinterpreted the results similarly.
I’m sure they’re already working this out if it is even a real problem.
This is Texas we’re talking about here… of course they’re not going to work it out.
Good point. Glad I wasn’t born into the Bible belt.
