Hospitals Need Volunteers To Cuddle Babies Born Addicted To Drugs And You Can Help

Time to cuddle all the babies.

Elana

• Published in Interesting
• May 17, 2018

Every year just under 4 million babies are born in the United States. That's a pretty staggering statistic considering our annual death toll is only around 2 million. We are a baby booming country these days so it's only natural to assume that not everything goes as planned. What we never expected to see was a booming opioid industry and the depressing effect it's had on mothers and innocent newborn babies. 

The numbers have been crunched and in the last 15 years, the number of babies born suffering from NAS (neonatal abstinence syndrome) has quadrupled. If you don't realize what that means I'll clarify. It means every 25 minutes a baby is born dealing with opioid withdrawal symptoms including pain all over and excessive shaking. They spend weeks in NICU recovering from the trauma they were born into.

In some communities, the rates of babies born with NAS are 8 times higher than the national average and it's got to stop.

In Tennessee, a group of general attorneys have banded together to sue the manufacturers of opioids. Sullivan County District Attorney General Barry Staubus, a plaintiff in one of the suits, said:

When you see those babies scream, you see them claw, you see them shake, it makes the problem real. It's not an abstract policy problem. It's not a lawsuit. It's a baby that never had a chance.

If you're feeling helpless right now, you're not alone. Empathetic people everywhere are driven to do something for these babies but we're in no position to sue drug manufacturers or administer morphine. Fret no further, friends! Cuddle Care programs are stepping in where there is a need. The medical staff in hospitals everywhere tending to babies born suffering from NAS are understandably busy but babies born with NAS are not able to soothe themselves and almost always their parents are struggling with their own addiction and physically (and legally, usually) unable to tend to their babies' needs for snuggles and comfort.

Jane Cavanaugh, a nurse in Pennsylvania watched the rising rates of babies born with NAS and felt compelled to do something, starting in her home town. So at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital she got the ball rolling. She told Philly.com:

These babies going through withdrawal need to be held for extended periods. They need human touch. They need soothing. They need talking.

She says:

When he cramps up, I hold him harder and pat a little firmer. They don't like to be stroked or caressed.

She told Today.com:

[The program] is about swaddling them and giving them that comfort and safe, secure feeling.

...We can see the reduction of the medication and often in the length of stay

Over the years countless studies have emerged proving the positive impact touch, skin to skin, and tending to an infant's desire and need for closeness have as well as proving how detrimental ignoring those things can be. Research done by at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio, states the importance of human touch on a baby’s brain development and Dr. Margot Sunderland  describes how the infant brain is still being "sculpted" after birth in the first parenting book to link parent behavior with infant brain development.

Especially since 2000 NAS rates have increased in the US by 383% (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) With numbers like these climbing and so many wanting to help, it seems like cuddle programs are the perfect missing puzzle piece while lawmakers and politicians battle the problem head on.

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Elana