Amairani Salinas was 32 weeks pregnant with her fourth child in 2023 when doctors at a Texas hospital discovered that her baby no longer had a heartbeat. As they prepped her for an emergency cesarean section, they gave her midazolam, a benzodiazepine commonly prescribed to keep patients calm. A day later, the grieving mother was cradling her stillborn daughter when a social worker stopped by her room to deliver another devastating blow: Salinas was being reported to child welfare authorities

What happened to Salinas and Villanueva are far from isolated incidents. Across the country, hospitals are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those very same substances on subsequent drug tests, an investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal has found.

    • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      if you dont have a medical or biochemist degree (and probably even then if this is your take) i suggest you take your nonsense elsewhere because frankly its incorrect and it has caused untold problems by preventing adequate care from being administered for people’s mental health. for example one doesnt need to look any further than psychedelics and depression caused by issues in the parasympathetic nervous system. most addicts are self medicating (often poorly and ineffectually) because of assholes like yourself limiting their and our ability to treat them effectively.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I have a teenager, and while some days were pretty busy, there has always been some spare time before bed.