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For babies born addicted to opioids, hospitals recruit volunteer cuddler
Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 01/13/2017 | Marie McCullough

Posted on 01/15/2017 9:41:45 AM PST by Kid Shelleen

---SNIP--- "They" are the most helpless, hapless victims of the opioid epidemic:babies born addicted to the prescription or illicit drugs their mothers took. Many of them spend weeks or months in the hospital, gradually being weaned from opioid dependence by getting decreasing doses of oral morphine or methadone.

Even mothers who are in recovery may not be able to visit their babies every day over such a long period, so many hospitals have enlisted helpers — volunteer cuddlers like Schultz.

"These babies going through withdrawal need to be held for extended periods," said Jane Cavanaugh, the nurse who created Jefferson's cuddler program a year ago. "They need human touch. They need soothing. They need talking.

(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: addiction; opioids
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To: Spacetrucker

GOD BLESSED YOU!!!


21 posted on 01/15/2017 10:54:37 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Yaelle

There is truth to what you have stated. Early experiments on this theory succeeded to produce mouse pups, but they always died a few hours or days after birth. Once a scientist injected the mice with semen, they began to thrive. This is a long way from being ‘human ready’.

I hate to think of the ‘failed experiments’ of children born using this method, but with profound defects and malformed organs. These children will probably not be allowed to live. One day, we may hear about a doctor who had to quit this research because they could no longer deal with disposing of the ‘failed experiments’ any longer. That movie from 1996 “The Island of Dr. Moreau” comes to mind as a worst case scenario.


22 posted on 01/15/2017 11:24:51 AM PST by lee martell
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To: lee martell

Hmmmm Will the baby have a soul?


23 posted on 01/15/2017 11:30:07 AM PST by tillacum (I've been a Great Deplorable, from the beginning of DJT's entrance into politics.)
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To: tillacum

I think yes. The child will be an individual, however brought into the world. Some may have wondered the same about children born from artificial insemination. Pure speculation, but I would think that even with a cloned human, you will find individual differences in personality or reaction to the same stimuli.The process is artificial, but the base products are from human beings with DNA and RNA. There is still a great deal about our biology (DNA, RNA) that is undefined.


24 posted on 01/15/2017 11:53:41 AM PST by lee martell
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To: OKSooner

>Fix mommy so she can’t do it again.

Exactly. One strike, you’re out. I would extend it to being on welfare too. No pinch offs while on the dole or pleasure drugs.


25 posted on 01/15/2017 12:09:30 PM PST by soycd
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To: OKSooner
Fix mommy so she can’t do it again

100% in agreement.

26 posted on 01/15/2017 12:32:47 PM PST by Mad_as_heck (The MSM - America's (domestic) public enemy #1.)
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To: OKSooner

“Fix mommy”? You mean, sterilize her? I disagree. Some of these moms are addicted to prescription opiates from previous surgeries/ medical crises. It is not hard at all to get addicted to a painkiller: ask Rush Limbaugh.

These moms are not permanently morally or psychically damaged. They can be good mothers, great mothers even. They just need help in getting off the opioids: just like their babies.


27 posted on 01/15/2017 2:13:07 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (O God come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.)
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To: Kid Shelleen

My mother worked in the NICU at a Baltimore City hospital for 20+ years. The stories she has of the drug-addled teenage (and older) mothers and their “men” would curl your hair. I don’t know how she survived the stress. Faith, I guess.


28 posted on 01/15/2017 2:18:21 PM PST by workerbee (America finally has an American president again.)
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To: Yaelle; Mad_as_heck; Kid Shelleen
This may be of interest to you:

#27

29 posted on 01/15/2017 2:19:30 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (O God come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Yes, that’s a fair point but honestly, exception can be made when there is an exception like you mention.

In the probably typical case of junkies making babies for afdc money, I wouldn’t even be opposed to helping baby daddy out too in the same way if he can be identified for sure.

I’ve heard that it’s not unusual for some of these guys to have... several kids, all being raised in the social pathology of the welfare state.


30 posted on 01/15/2017 2:45:54 PM PST by OKSooner (www.greatagain.gov <= Go here to put a note in the suggestion box!)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I understand your position.

However, there is no excuse for a child being born addicted to drugs. I feel great compassion for anyone trapped in the nightmare of addiction but the safety of the child- and any potential future children- must be society’s first concern.

I do not want the government interfering in people’s private affairs without very great cause. However, once a man or woman has been proven to have abused or neglected children there is no reason whatsoever for them to have additional children (or to have the care of children) until they have PROVEN they will care for those children properly.

I am absolutely opposed to abortion and recommend self-control as the best form of birth control. Sadly, however, we are talking about women with psychiatric and/or addition problems that make them untrustworthy with regard to voluntary abstinence from sexual activity or self-administration of birth control.

So if I had my druthers they are getting the Norplant or something similar until their act is demonstrably cleaned up....


31 posted on 01/15/2017 3:43:06 PM PST by Mad_as_heck (The MSM - America's (domestic) public enemy #1.)
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To: Mad_as_heck

No one has any right to force contraception or sterilization (whether temporary or permanent) upon an unwilling woman -— or man.

There’s a great deal of opiate dependency here in East Tennessee (both IV and oral) and forcing the implantation of a contraceptive such as Norplant would require totalitarian controls and the corruption of those in the medical profession conscripted as enforcers.

Any coerced contraception is a grave violation of human dignity, and leads by a short route to such atrocities as forced eugenic sterilization (as in Buck vs Bell) and wholesale brutalities such as population suppression in Communist China.

This is one of the big reasons why we have to get did of Obamacare, isn’t it? To keep medical decisions out of the hands of the State?


32 posted on 01/15/2017 5:24:13 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.)
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To: jttpwalsh
I worked with a curmudgeonly old man that few folks liked. We were all shocked when a new hire came in and told us her cousin ran this kind of program at the county hospital, and the old man was one of the longest serving volunteers.

He channeled his love to the ones who understood and appreciated it.

33 posted on 01/15/2017 5:34:47 PM PST by Ezekiel (All who mourn(ed!) the destruction of America merit the celebration of her rebirth.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
In a just and sane society a person who harms a child would be in jail or a mental institution. Their release would be predicated on those measures that would protect the public from further harm. Compelling people who are 100% certain to birth further "crack babies" to accept the administration of a temporary and reversible birth control device is ethical, moral, and just.

Throwing people in prison- or a psychiatric hospital - is an even graver violation of human dignity and yet we do that every day.

I would not throw a man in cell or hospital room lightly but there are times where such is necessary for his safety and the safety of the public. Same with quarantining people with infectious diseases.

I equally do not casually suggest forcing this measure on certain people who have either committed a crime against their children to take birth control. Such is, nevertheless, in my mind a legitimate public health measure.

I would certainly make an exception for someone with strong religious or ethical objections to birth control. I would prefer that people behave with personal responsibility and would not use such measures except in extraordinary situations.

34 posted on 01/15/2017 5:55:36 PM PST by Mad_as_heck (The MSM - America's (domestic) public enemy #1.)
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To: Ezekiel

Very true. Thanks !


35 posted on 01/15/2017 9:09:11 PM PST by jttpwalsh
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To: Mad_as_heck

I agree that to inflict harms on babies before birth, is heinous, and so I understand what would motivate you to impose reversible long-term contraception (such as Norplant) on female drug addicts.

Its even predictable that such women, faced with the option of either an endocrine disruptor or incarceration, would choose Norplant over jail.

Plus, she might have other kids to take care of and be carergiver for other family members well (I’m thinking of a middle-aged opioid user, mother of two, who comes to our parish for assistance, who also takes care of her disabled parents)-— so jailing her would throw four other people into a desperate situation.

She takes care of her family very well, by the way: her addiction doesn’t seem to interfere with that. It’s certainly better then throwing her kids into the wretched foster care system, and her parents into God-knows-what state of abandonment and misery.

As far as I know, by the way, her children are “legitimate” -— it’s just that her husband is in and out of jail. She supports herself by cleaning houses, off the books, plus various kinds of assistance. Her parents are on SS.

Would Norplant help her? It’s tempting, when you look at one woman’s situation. But when you look at it as a social policy, I think it opens the door to government control of human reproduction -— people’s bodies belonging in effect to the state -— next step, govt pharmaceutical control of its citizens.

What’s needed is to help her get free of her addiction, meanwhile a bit of wise abstaining from sex. Don’t go the route of forcing injections and implants on hundreds of thousands of women. You won’t like where that ends up. Unless you like North Korea as a model for socual order and dignity.


36 posted on 01/15/2017 11:37:58 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.)
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