The opioid crisis is straining the nation’s foster-care systems - The Washington Post @fil
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-opioid-crisis-is-straining-the-nations-foster-care-systems/2017/06/30/97759fb2-52a1-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html
GREENBUSH, MAINE — Deb McLaughlin’s 3-year-old grandson climbed all over her, pleading to play trucks, restless as always. Her 1-year-old foster daughter, who had just woken from a midday nap, sat in her lap, wearing a frilly dress and an irresistible smile. At least McLaughlin doesn’t have to worry about the daily shots of methadone anymore, at least these babies no longer scream and shake for the opioids to which they were born addicted.
This isn’t what McLaughlin envisioned for her empty nest years in rural Maine, trading camping and four-wheeling trips for social-worker check-ins, meetings with behavioral therapists and supervised visits with the drug-addicted biological parents who had to give up these children. McLaughlin’s daughter, who once dreamed of being a lawyer, is one of the millions of Americans addicted to opioids and one of thousands of parents whom state governments have deemed unfit to care for their own children.
“It’s heartbreaking to watch a baby go through withdrawal, and then give that baby back to Mom,” McLaughin said as she prepared snacks in her blue mobile home outside Old Town, along the Penobscot River. “Because she did that to her.”
Drug crisis is pushing up death rates for almost all groups of Americans
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-drug-crisis-is-now-pushing-up-death-rates-for-almost-all-groups-of-americans/2017/06/09/971d8424-4aa1-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html
In just one year, nearly 1.3 million Americans needed hospital care for opioid-related issues
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/06/20/in-just-one-year-nearly-1-3-million-americans-needed-hospital-care-f
Children of Addicted Women
▻https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4451952
“Abstract
The purpose of this article was to review follow up studies of children with prenatal drug exposure from preschool through adolescence. Specifically, the authors focus on the effects of prenatal exposure to cocaine, methamphetamine, and opiates on behavior and development. The largest number of studies have examined cocaine-exposed children. The authors identified 42 studies that suggest that there are unique effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on 4- to 13-year-old children, particularly in the areas of behavior problems, attention, language, and cognition. In addition, studies make reasonable attempts to control for possible confounding factors. Systematic research on the long-term effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure is just beginning but seems to be showing similar effects to that of cocaine. The literature on the on the long-term effects of children with prenatal opiate exposure is more substantial than the methamphetamine literature but it is still relatively sparse and surprising in that there is little recent work. Thus, there are no studies on the current concerns with opiates used for prescription mediation. There is a growing literature using neuroimaging techniques to study the effects of prenatal drug exposure that holds promise for understanding brain/behavior relationships. In addition to pharmacological and teratogenic effects, drugs can also be viewed from a prenatal stressor model. The author discuss this “fetal origins” approach that involves fetal programming and the neuroendocrine system and the potential implications for adolescent brain and behavioral development.”
Dollars for Doctors - ProPublica
▻https://www.propublica.org/series/dollars-for-docs
The Prescribers - ProPublica
▻https://www.propublica.org/series/prescribers