Pubdate: Tue, 28 Aug 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Elaine O'Connor

TINY, INNOCENT AND ADDICTED

A baby boy and a girl sleep in opposite corners of the nursery in the 
neonatal intensive-care unit. One rocks gently in a jungle-themed 
swing, her little pink fists curled near her head as she dreams, the 
other is bundled in blankets in an isolated bassinet.

In the unit with them are four other premature infants, all of them 
fighting to grow and breathe and thrive despite their early births 
and medical complications. But these two babies are fighting 
something else as well: drug addiction.

NICU clinical nurse leader and nurse educator Liz Hennessey has seen 
more newborns in withdrawal than she cares to recall since she joined 
St. Paul's as the manager of the nine-bed NICU in 2006.

"We call them boarder babies," she says of the infants suffering the 
effects of their mothers' substance abuse. "They stay with us for a long time."

Some stay as long as three months before they can go home or, as is 
usual in these cases, before they go into the care of the Ministry of 
Children and Family Development.

Most babies born to addicts display neonatal abstinence syndrome. 
They are often irritable, cry inconsolably and can be jittery and 
hard to settle. Small for their age, they can suffer breathing 
problems and be prone to seizures. These children are also more 
susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome, and to cognitive 
impairment later on.

Low lighting and quiet can help calm their nerves. If the infants are 
born in severe withdrawal, they are administered tiny doses of 
morphine to help them cope, which are tapered down gradually. Often, 
the babies are tested for HIV, hepatitis and other diseases and 
treated as needed.

Most of the babies seen at St. Paul's are born to moms who used 
methadone or heroin - cocaine and crack use is less common.

And addicted babies are much less common on the ward than they used to be.

In 1989, there were worried news reports about a rash of drug 
dependent newborns after the hospital saw 16 cases in the first 10 
months of that year. The proximity of St. Paul's to the Downtown 
Eastside means it still sees such cases, but not at the same rate - a 
dozen a year, at most, Hennessey estimates.

Since 2003, B.C. Women's Hospital has taken over much of the case 
load after founding its Fir Square program, which treats substance 
using women and their newborns in a single unit. Babies born before 
32 weeks are also diverted to hospitals with higher-acuity NICUs.

But St. Paul's staff strive to give the substance-exposed babies that 
do stay here just as much love as other newborns. Staff post family 
pictures above their bassinets and ensure the babies get enough 
physical touching for their development by calling in a designated 
volunteer "baby cuddler."

These babies didn't get the best start in life, but they're clearly 
getting the best care.
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