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Last updated on Wednesday, January 11, 2017
(RICHMOND) - Officials at a hospital in Richmond say 30 percent of mothers who gave birth there last year tested positive for an illicit or high-risk drug.
The Palladium-Item reports that 211 of the over 684 women who gave birth at Reid Health tested positive for one of seven types of drugs.
Fifty-eight of the positive tests were for opiates, far surpassing positive results on screenings for marijuana. One in seven mothers tested positive for that drug.
The hospital began drug screens on all women delivering at the hospital in the middle of 2015 after a growing trend of babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, which involves newborns experiencing withdrawal from drug addiction.
Lisa Suttle, director of the psychiatric service line for Reid, says not all of the babies born to mothers testing positive to a drug would suffer withdrawal.
Information from: Palladium-Item, http://www.pal-item.com
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