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Giving new meaning to the phrase “Watch what you eat,” Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Mort and Alex Rodriguez had their newborn daughter Isabella taken by children’s services because Mort flunked a drug test. Which, if you listen to Mort (and the ACLU, natch), was a misunderstanding caused by a poppy-seed bagel.
[Isabella Rodriguez] was born on April 27 at Jameson Hospital’s North Campus in Lawrence County. Before the birth, per hospital policy, Mort was required to submit a urine sample for drug testing. She agreed to the test but reportedly …
… was not told the results.
On April 30, the day after Mort was discharged from the hospital, a caseworker with Lawrence County Children and Youth Services obtained an emergency order and removed the baby from Mort’s New Castle, Pa., home because she had allegedly tested positive for opiates.
According to the lawsuit, the level of opiates in Mort’s system was well below federal workplace drug testing standards and was caused by Mort ingesting a bagel containing poppy seeds before giving birth. The lawsuit also alleges that Mort passed a subsequent drug test and that Children and Youth Services admitted the mistake, but kept her daughter in foster care for five days before finally returning her to her parents.
Um … wow.
I understand that hospitals can make mistakes (y’all remember that accidental circumcision?), but this raises some questions in my mind.
First, I’m kind of bothered by the fact that the ACLU is trying to sugarcoat the presence of opiates in a childbearing mother by implying that it was so low that a people greeter at Wal-Mart would “pass” a drug test with the same result. That’s nitpicking, and frankly it raises a red flag rather than giving credence to their argument in my opinion.
Secondly, it stands to reason that the drug test results would have shown up pretty quickly. Why was the test not repeated as soon as opiates were detected? I mean, if it’s your policy to test women in labor for drugs, what the hell’s the point if you’re not even going to look at the results quickly enough to make any sort of sound medical decisions? How many crack babies are going home from Jameson Hospital because someone at the lab is apparently asleep at the switch?
Thirdly, I’d be curious to know if Mort has a history of drug abuse. Adolf Hitler Campbell and children of Oath Keepers aside, it is pretty freaking difficult to have a child removed from the custody of its parents. I find it rather hard to believe that an easily explained bagel shop mishap would lead to such dire, drastic, and immediate action if there wasn’t more to the story.
One other question, while I’m at it. Is it standard operating procedure to perform drug tests on women in labor? I personally wouldn’t have questioned a drug test with either of my pregnancies and obviously see it as a good thing for the little ones in utero. I do have concerns, however, about women avoiding medical care during pregnancy (or even giving birth at home with the help of heroin) if they thought they would be penalized for failing a drug test. Ugh, I hate cans of worms …
Anyway, Mort and Rodriguez (via the ACLU) want “policy changes, damages and attorney fees.”
Is it just me, or has there got to be more to this freaking weird story?
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No, it is not standard practice to drug test a woman in labor. This would normally only be done if there is a past history with CPS, if they were arrested on suspicion of drug use, or they come into the hospital whacked out of their minds. Otherwise, women only get the standard battery of tests that come with being pregnant. (I’ve been through the foster adopt program here in CA as a prospective parent, and have a kid of my own.)
There has got to be more to this story. My aunt just had a baby. Like an hour ago, and she didn’t have a drug test. Also, they can’t do a drug test if you have eaten anything because there are many chemicals in food which show up as false positives, and I know in Vermont, you have to have two drug tests (urine and blood, or blood and blood, or hair and blood) to actually confirm the findings.
HA!
This hospital is known locally as the Jameson Veterinary Clinic. It is their policy to drug test all pregnant women, yes.
And for those of you who are OBVIOUSLY out of the loop – you most certainly CAN fail a drug test if you have ingested poppy seeds – and there are a lot of poppy seeds on Dunkin Donuts Bagel With Everything.
At issue here is the threshold that this hospital set its drug testing standards. I have seen several local hospital administrators interviewed and they all agreed that JMH’s standards are ridiculously low.
Here is some interesting information on the subject:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19901868
There might be something more to it. But it might just be a rare and ridiculous story. That’s the kind of thing that makes great press..
@Blurry: I do know that poppy seeds can cause false positives. If social services had tried to take MY newborn away for five days over something so easily explained–wait, it would NEVER happen…and that’s what I found so weird. And LOL at Jameson Veterinary Clinic.
I agree – anyone taking one of my kids would be risking their life.
Except maybe now… 16 year old, anyone?
I’ll trade you your 16 year old for an 18 year old who has suddenly started acting like a 14 year old…
Deal.
It sounds like a plan – my 18 year old is suddenly behaving like a 30 year old. It should average out.
Warning: the 16 year old just got her wisdom teeth removed. I can predict from past behavior that she’ll milk this for at least 2 weeks. You will think that you have another 3 year old.
Send her on to Katie when your nerves are shot.
I’ve got a 16-year-old myself, but she’s not up for grabs. At least, not this week ;-)
I feel like the people at Jameson Veterinary Clinic should…I dunno, have tails or something…
Mythbusters did a segment on poppy seeds and drug tests.
Apparently results can differ not only on the individual, but also on the source of the seeds themselves (growing conditions, etc.).
On Mythbusters, the two test subjects were both adult men, who appeared to be average in one case and tall in the other. In order for the opiates to show up in their urine, one had to eat an entire poppy-seed cake, and the other had to eat three whole poppy seed bagels. I’m not suggesting it’s out of the question, especially for a hungry pregnant woman, to binge on bagels, cake, or whatever (assuming the full-term fetus has left enough space for her stomach to expand). I do think it seems unusual to drug-test all pregnant women and I would suggest they need some sort of additional evidence to justify taking away a newborn.
Meant to include this link as an example of findings.
http://www.poppies.org/faq/legal-issues/can-eating-a-poppy-seed-bagel-cause-you-to-fail-a-drug-test/
This is why I don’t eat poppyseeds. Ever. You never know when it will come back to bite you in the ass.
.
That being said, I’m a tad skeptical this woman’s story. Why was she tested for drugs? Why wasn’t she informed of the results, so she could re-test? That is allowed in most employment settings. What is her drug history? And if it’s just smoking weed and maybe trying shrooms in college, that doesn’t count.
.
I mean if her baby really was taken away over a bagel, that’s horrendous. But I feel like I need all the facts here.
Here is a link to a local news channel’s website. It explains in more detail.
This was a case of pure bureaucratic fuckery from start to finish.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/25550760/detail.html
I STILL want to know, though, why the hell she didn’t do anything, try to explain, call freaking 911, call the ACLU IMMEDIATELY, whatever if her side of the story is 100% accurate. There is NO WAY that I’d “just cry and cry” if somebody took my baby away for such a ridiculous (and, once again, easily explained) reason. I still think there’s got to be more to the story.
A bit more information here, but I suspect we won’t hear anything till this comes to trial.
http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/new_mothers_the_latest_victims_of_the_war_on_drugs
Not everyone is assertive. Not everyone grows up being taught to fight for their rights. Many people are people-pleasers, and learn to do as others ask. They are taught not to question authority.
Baby gets taken away, and they are crushed rather than angry.
They will pry my poppy seed bagels from my cold, dead hands.
[...] I’m guessing that means that social services have taken her son away … I mean, it’s not like she just ate a bagel or something. [...]
[...] Couple lose custody of newborn over a bagel? – Zelda Lily [...]