This Feb. 16, 2017 file photo shows newborn babies in the nursery of a postpartum recovery center in upstate New York.Three years after Colorado stopped requiring doctors to report newborns who tested positive for drugs as possible child abuse victims, the number of families referred to child protective services for prenatal drug use is down 25% — but hospitals are still learning how best to support new mothers battling addiction.
Most providers working in birthing facilities don’t know that the law changed, though, and they may still report families based solely on a drug test, said Dr. Christine Gold, a pediatric hospitalist at University of Colorado Hospital. Facilities also vary in how they decide whether to drug-test parents and how equipped they are to offer help to families dealing with addiction, she said.
“It’s putting people in a position where they have this information they’re compelled to act on,” even if the information isn’t accurate, she said. Parents “are making a reasonable choice to try to avoid detection unless we make a change, where labor and delivery units are seen as a safe haven,” she said.
Since the law changed, providers have had to make a mental shift from “mandatory reporter” to “mandatory responder” in some cases, said Don Stader, executive director of the Colorado Naloxone Project. In the past, the provider’s responsibility ended with reporting to the state. Now, while they aren’t legally required to work with the patient to get them into treatment and to plan so the newborn has a safe environment, that’s the clear best practice, he said.
“That’s a very short time for a team to pull together all the resources someone might need,” she said.
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