Epidemic of babies born addicted to drugs in Kentucky

Lexington, Ky. (WTVQ) — Adoption is not for the faint of heart as it brings many challenges, especially when adopting a child who has neonatal absence or neonatal opioid syndrome.

Rebecca Sherrard has had a front seat to the drug epidemic in Kentucky.

“I’ve been in this field for 21 years and I think I’ve always seen it,” said Sherrard. “Starting about the year, really 2010, is when I really started to see like cocaine and I was kind of shocked by that. And then now I’ve seen them progress to heroine and fentanyl and you know that’s been really tough.”

She says in Kentucky right now you can guarantee at least 20 percent of the babies in the neonatal ICU are suffering from drug withdrawal.

“I would love to tell you it’s going to end tomorrow, but I don’t really see an end in sight.”

So much so that health officials have come up with a separate title for babies born specifically to mothers on opioids. They now call that NOS.

Those babies seem to have the worst time detoxing.

“And it is also hard on the mom. The mom, she doesn’t wake up one day and say ‘Hey I’m going to become addicted to drugs’.”

Sherrard does get to see the happy side through her company “Heart to Home’ where she is able to unit babies with adoptive parents. Those parents nowadays are usually trained before the baby arrives.

“As far as the parents go usually they know in advance that this baby is going to have some exposure and could be addicted. And so they’re trained and ready for that.”

And as these babies grow, studies are now showing long term effects to being born dependent.

“You know when they get a little older they can have trouble regulating their emotions, they can have ADHD, they can have risk behaviors. Or they can have none of those.”

It’s the luck of the draw born from a troubling epidemic.