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She Ate Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away
- puttycat 2y agoSeinfeld, season 6 episode 17: Elaine takes a urine test in order to go on a work trip to Kenya with her boss, J. Peterman. She tests positive for opium. Elaine insists she has never taken drugs, but when a frantic Kramer shows up at her office begging her to let him use her normal-pressure shower, Peterman mistakes him for a drug addict and fires Elaine. Elaine realizes that the test is picking up the poppy seeds in her favorite muffins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shower_Head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shower_Head
- speckx 2y agoWhen life imitates art, and art imitates life.
- ortusdux 2y agoThe DOD reciently warned service members that they should avoid eating them as well - https://media.defense.gov/2023/Feb/21/2003164614/-1/-1/1/POPPY-SEEDS-WARNING-MEMO-SIGNED-CONTACT-REDACTED.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2023/Feb/21/2003164614/-1/-1/1/POP...
- garciasn 2y agoMy daughter was born with some serious issues landing her in the NICU for nearly a week two or three days after she was born. Soon after, I was pulled into a small room with a social worker, several healthcare providers (nurses and doctors) and a police officer. I was peppered with questions about what drugs my then-wife had been taking during her pregnancy. I was honestly aghast; this was a woman who spent both pregnancies puking into garbage bags she carried with her everywhere because she refused to take the anti-nausea medication she was prescribed to keep things down and other than the epidural, she refused to take even OTC painkillers or drinking caffeine of any sort (decaf or not) during her pregnancy for fear of repercussions to the babies down the line. This was on top of her STRONG aversion to even cannabis and only occasional wine drinking in what most would consider only a slight step above teetotaling. While I can completely and utterly understand the medical profession's careful monitoring of a situation, particularly when it comes to negative birthing outcomes in the US, the first response should not be the vilification of parents until they are 1099% sure they have evidence that supports such action. But, then again, when we had our first kiddo and she received an incorrectly inserted epidural there wasn't even a single apology from anyone, let alone the anesthesiologist who let the epidural leak into her skin, eventually puffing up the skin to a noticeable bubble, rather than where it was supposed to be, leaving her in excruciating pain to the point where I had to scream at the nurse's station for 45 straight minutes until someone would listen instead of just telling me she was fine and we were overreacting. Or the doctor who was stitching her up afterward, lacking any and all bedside manner, by saying he should have taken a before and after photo of her vagina, in front of me and my wife, because he had done such a great job. When it came to our stay in the NICU: we were asleep in a room on another floor, our first in 40+ hours, they performed surgery on our daughter w/o asking our permission or informing us first because they attempted to call the room we were in but we didn't answer--only later to find out that the room's phone had been removed and wasn't there. No one thought to come to the room or even call the nurses' station literally next to the room to have them ask/inform us of the surgery first. But, sure, go ahead and add on immense stress in one of the most stressful situations of our lives through false accusations while protecting your doctors to the nth degree.
- getcrunk 2y agoHoly shit! What hospital?
- OutOfHere 2y agoHoly Shit Hospital. Fwiw, the hospital noted in the article (not in the parent comment), is Kaiser Permanente hospital in Santa Rosa, in Northern California.
- OutOfHere 2y agoThese could be fair opportunities to rightfully sue the hospital for emotional harassment and more. If you don't sue the hospital, nothing will change.
- ipython 2y agoMy wife was almost killed due to a botched surgery (for cancer). She felt bad for weeks afterward - and every time we returned, we were told she "just needed more time". So I finally admitted her to the ER where they declared she was in septic shock. I inquired about suing (to some attorneys who specialize in this sort of thing) and was basically told that there was little chance of any recovery, and it would be a large burden on us to literally re-litigate the entire traumatic event. So we passed.
- OutOfHere 2y agoThe trick is to settle out of court before the full case plays out in court. If they choose not to settle, you still don't have to continue with the case if you don't want to.
- ipython 2y agoThis sounds like something the attorneys would have suggested if they thought it was worth the time. I don't mean to be snippy, but have you done this? It's easy to make this comment online- it's a whole other thing to actually go through with it on top of all your other life stressors and reliving the trauma. I would welcome your story, so I can learn on how best to approach if there is ever a next time.
- petermcneeley 2y agoThere was a talk show host that use to talk about this about 15 years ago. I tried but I cannot seem to find any clips of him on youtube.
- irowe 2y agoNot a talk show, but the pilot season of Mythbusters tackled this. They registered some false positives and the test manufacturer refused to admit it was possible.
- falcolas 2y agoYeah. That was really eye opening. They had to go to a proper lab to have the false positive properly assessed. And they had that false positive for close to 24 hours, as I recall.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago> She wondered aloud what neighbors would say if they saw her daughter playing in the mud, if someone might accuse her of being a bad parent. I can't really get inside the head of the assholes who judge kids playing in the mud. It's real. > The day after Smith delivered her son, a doctor told her that she and her baby had tested positive for meth and that the hospital had notified child protective services... Smith’s husband, Michael, asked the doctor to review his wife’s medical records to confirm her prescription, according to the doctor’s notes. Is there a reckoning coming for OB/GYN training in America?
- falcolas 2y agoYes, but (unfortunately) not from this. From fewer and fewer states having candidates come to train in those states to become an OB/GYN due to the restrictive abortion laws. Not to mention the experienced OB/GYN are leaving for the same reason.
- OutOfHere 2y agoSue the hospital is all I can say. Also sue the social worker personally, and their employer too. Document and record everything. Be careful about making any statements that could be misconstrued as evidence against you, but feel free to yell at the staff (never at the police) to show your immediate disgust.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoSue the social worker personally, this represents exceptionally poor judgment and critical thinking skills. Truly bottom of their class, local governments hiring the bottom of the barrel. Costco would even have a digital receipt for any member purchase if they discarded the paper one. Wouldn't police at least have to have probable cause before even running a test like this? 1 visit to this families home the day after should have been sufficient to clear this up.
- anigbrowl 2y agoFederal officials have known for decades that urine screens are not reliable. Poppy seeds—which come from the same plant used to make heroin—are so notorious for causing positives for opiates that last year the Department of Defense directed service members to stop eating them. Absolute meme country. Why do we institutionalize such stupidity?
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoBecause it's cheaper than trying to design higher quality or more specific tests.
- falcolas 2y agoI agree with this. Moreso, the cost of firing/CPSing a false positive is likely negligible in the grand scale.
- ChainOfFools 2y agoBy selecting for efficient test taking robots at the critical gateways to the graduate level education necessary to obtain these decision-making "leadership" roles. A comparable phenomenon is at work in medical school admissions, with similar results that lead to the sort of appallingly callous group-preservation outcomes described in the original article and some of the comments here. The entire system is irreversibly broken at the most fundamental levels, as this same class of decision makers are the ones who are consulted when developing the next round of gatekeeping tests and curricula.
- klyrs 2y agoLook, if you can't quit poppy seeds for a single pee test, you're probably an addict. (parody)
- OutOfHere 2y agoTechnically, heroin should be legal just like marijuana is legal. It was used for thousands of years as a minor addiction and without harm, providing much needed relief to people. (I'm not saying it's suitable for prenatal use.) The pharma industry will never allow it to happen, preferring to sell their narcotics instead.
- tokai 2y agoThe drug testing nonsense in the US is the weirdest thing. Here it seems that it even supplant the actual thing you want to achieve - identifying children with development damage from the mothers drug abuse. If the child is perfectly healthy it shouldn't matter what any drug test states. It's like the testing is more important than the outcome.
- adamnemecek 2y agoWhy is the US government like this?
- timbit42 2y agoIn democracies, governments reflect their citizens.
- aaomidi 2y agoGreat thing we’re not a democracy then. Our next president is likely going to be someone who none of us actually voted for in a primary.
- timeon 2y agoPopular vote is not decisive for that vote anyway.
- Caboose8685 2y agoA system where the whole populace votes on everything isn't the only kind of democracy. The US is a representative democracy.
- aaomidi 2y agoDid I say they have to vote on everything?
- ipython 2y agoMy son was embarrassed that he wet himself during class one day (he's way too old for this, we've had him medically evaluated and come out with no medical issues, etc... he just will get engrossed in screens and relieve himself because he doesn't want to leave to the bathroom). Anyway the substitute teacher that day believed his sob story about how angry his mother would get when she finds out he's soiled himself, and this ends up in a referral to child protective services. A case agent is assigned, comes to visit the house while I'm out of town (we had no idea until she showed up at the door). Thankfully, no action was taken. But now we have this "black mark" on our record as parents for five years. I get why these agencies exist, and there are real problems out there. But to be caught up in these bureaucratic regimes is a total nightmare, as you're presumed to be a total douchebag until proven otherwise. It's terrifying.
- falcolas 2y agoIt's the classical problem of how do you provide protection for someone with no power in a relationship against the person with all the power in a relationship. Do you believe the rape victim, or the rapist? The child or the parent? The physically/mentally disabled or their care givers? Sadly, there's been too many people in power who have proven themselves to be assholes to just trust the people with the power when they say they're not assholes.
- scyzoryk_xyz 2y agoThem coming unannounced is exactly how it should work. You’re not a customer in that situation - you are the suspect. There are real problems out there. In this case it was suspicious that you might be one of them. Your own child has a problem and you’re saying “we’ve had him evaluated” like they’re some malfunctioning animal. And then you’re calling his distress a “sob story”. Yikes! Obviously, I don’t know your real situation, but the way I understand it, presuming people are douchebags works when it comes to this social work stuff. Something strange happened and it would make sense that it would be recorded if other pathologies/patterns are detected later.
- racked 2y ago> And then you’re calling his distress a “sob story”. Yikes! Make no mistake: kids, and people in general, are manipulative creatures.
- jimt1234 2y agoThe article seems to focus on the unreliability of drug testing, which is a great topic, but IMHO, the real issue here is mothers being drug-tested, seemingly without their consent or knowledge. Furthermore, I feel like focusing on the reliability of drug testing (again, a great topic) implies the practice of drug testing mothers is acceptable. It's not. We all wanna protect babies, and punish bad parents, but why does this seem to always fall on mothers/women? Yes, I know there's plenty of laws that could apply to fathers, but I've never heard of a dude getting drug-tested without his consent as a condition of fatherhood.
- lazyasciiart 2y agoBecause many people really really want to criminalize using drugs while pregnant. Some states already have. Edit: Washington state updated their state guidelines so that if a baby tests positive for opiates and they match a prescribed medication the mother is taking then they don’t need to make a report to CPS. You literally had news articles screaming that babies would die because of this change. e.g this article is a good example of the coverage: mostly they never even explained that it had to be a prescribed drug to get out of reporting https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/wa-hospitals-no-longer-required-to-report-all-substance-exposed-infants/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/wa-hospital...
- falcolas 2y agoBeing fair, I've seen the effect mere alcohol has on a child first hand. It's not subtle, and it is debilitating for the child in the long run. Can you imagine your child being addicted to meth coming out of the womb, and how it affected their development? There's a lot of prescription drugs that doctors will take pregnant women off due to the impact it can have on the fetus. To the point where it could kill the mother (thinking mostly of long-term cancer treatments for this use-case).
- jimt1234 2y agoI get that, but why doesn't any of this fall on dudes? Yes, mothers actually "give birth", but focusing punishment only on mothers implies that dudes lack accountability in the birthing process, like, "Here ya go. Here's some sperm. It's all on you now." Sorry, not trying to be argumentative. But I'm just kinda passionate about this stuff. And I don't even have any kids! LOL
- aaomidi 2y agoWhy the fuck are they drug testing? Fuck this shit. Hospitals aren’t police.