1 in 10 babies born in Danville, KY is born addicted.

[MelissaB]

DANVILLE, Ky. (WKYT) - For every 10 babies born at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, one baby is born addicted to drugs.

Stephanie Kilby, who manages labor and delivery and the baby nurseries at Ephraim McDowell, said nursery staff started noticing the increase in neonatal abstinence syndrome — infants newborn withdrawal — a couple of years ago. "We realized that we could possibly treat the babies here instead of sending them to (University of Kentucky Hospital)," Kilby said.

...snip

Last summer, WKYT visited the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UK Children's Hospital. At any given time, nurses there said about 25 percent of the babies in the NICU are withdrawing from opiates. Dr. Henrietta Bada said the incidence of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome in Kentucky has increased almost 20-fold from the year 2000 to 2013.

Health officials say the increase at Ephraim McDowell is yet the latest example of a growing problem that needs to be addressed.

Link with video: http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/WKYT-Investigates--Addicted-babies-hospital-makes-special-nursery-for-growing-problem-293738981.html

[Fumesucker]

1. Rat Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s (and published in 1980) by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

Alexander's hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself.[1] He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that prior experiments in which laboratory rats were kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to a self-injection apparatus, show only that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can.

[Warpy]

3. Pretty much true

People in the US are increasingly isolated, working long hours and deprived of contact with friends and families and stressed to the max by poor working conditions and low wages.

That self medication is on the rise should surprise no one.

In any case, drug addicted newborns are tough to watch, but studies have shown there are no lasting effects that can't be attributed to poverty or poor parenting due to poverty.

Poverty is the most evil WMD in the world.

[herding cats]

4. Your post and the one before it are both excellent

But your last line is powerful, as well as correct. Very well said!

[MelissaB]

2. I just moved to KY last year.

This is the 6th state I've lived in, and I have never seen anything like this. The stories around here are shocking.

[angrychair]

5. bite your tongue

All Republican states are True American (tm) cities for Real Americans (tm)....all conservative utopias and models of how all state governments should be run. All the southern states are #1 at everything. Balanced state budgets and citizens are all happy and proud to serve the will of their employer and god-fearing church.

If needed:

[MelissaB]

6. .