Nearly Half of Newborns at Tennessee Hospital Are Prescription Drug-Addicted

Hidden America: Nearly Half of Newborns at Tennessee Hospital Are Drug-Dependent

July 12, 2012

ABC News - Saunders is helping develop a treatment program for these newborns by using a powerful combination of drugs, trial and error, and lots of love and care. It can take weeks, even months, for these tiny bodies to withdrawal from whatever their mothers were hooked on. It costs $53,000 per baby to wean them, and 60 percent of the cases are on Medicaid.

Saunders said she used to go home in tears after watching the newborns suffer, but over time, she has grown accustomed to it. She now pours her emotions into helping the little ones.

"When I started, you maybe had a withdrawal baby once in a while and then it was once a month, and then it was once a week and then it was once a day," she said. "We got six this weekend, all at one time, within almost 48 hours."

Baby Grayson had to wait two days for a spot to open up at the hospital's specialized NICU. After a few days of being on morphine, the infant seemed to be a bit calmer and not as shaky -- a big difference from when he was first brought in.

Ashton, Grayson's mother, is just 19 years old. She told ABC News was still in high school when she tried Roxicodone, a prescription painkiller, for the first time as a party drug. Ashton said painkillers were easy to find.

"It's crazy to see how many kids are strung out on opiates," she said. "I mean, you go to school and that's all you hear, that's all they talk about, that's all that's there."

Because of her drug habit, Ashton said she lost a college basketball scholarship and spent entire paychecks she earned from waitressing to buy the illegal prescription drugs. And she said she knows all too well what it's like to have a family member addicted to painkillers.

"I grew up around it, I know, and it wasn't fun," she said, though tears.

Having tried to go cold turkey on her own, Ashton said she knows just how painful withdrawal can be.

"You get cold chills, your skin feels like it's crawling," she said. "You don't want anybody to touch you. You're sweaty, you're yucky, you're just uncomfortable, you're irritable."

Ashton said it's upsetting to watch her infant son go through the same thing.

"It drives me crazy," she said. "It makes me beat myself up every day."