Common Over-the-counter and Legally Prescribed Medications Aiding the Medical Kidnapping of Newborns from Unsuspecting Mothers

Drug testing mothers about to give birth varies from state to state and facility to facility. Most facilities only drug test mothers who are considered “high risk” for drug abuse. For a mother to be considered high risk, facilities have a set of guidelines they follow to determine if the testing is necessary. Some states and facilities drug test all mothers to be. But in order for them to do a drug test, consent is required, which is rarely, if ever, mentioned to mother. It is hidden somewhere among the fine print of the multiple papers given to you to sign, and usually included with the “authorization to treat” form. Not only is this misleading and unethical, it could be against the law.   The AMA Journal of Ethics published an article informing readers about how the Supreme Court agreed petitioners in Ferguson v. City of Charleston: “…challenged the constitutionality of the drug tests, claiming that performing the tests in the absence of a warrant or informed consent violated the patients' Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.” Many people may say, “Who cares if they drug test expecting mothers. Women who are pregnant should never be taking illegal or illicit drugs.” But what if a mother is taking a legal medication, prescribed to her by her physician, that is known to cause a false-positive on a urine drug screen?   When a woman tests positive for drugs prior to giving birth, the hospital then collects the newborns first void, known as meconium, to also be tested for drugs.  This testing also requires consent from the parents, and again is seldom, if ever, received from the mother. The meconium is collected and sent to the lab for testing.  If the meconium tests positive for drugs, a complaint is made to CPS.

Hospitals Separating Newborn Infants from Mothers due to Coronavirus Fears

Expecting mothers can experience enormous amounts of worry and anxiety. With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world, expecting mothers have even more reasons to be worried when hospitals are separating newborns from their mothers within seconds of birth. "I saw her and felt her on my chest for like maybe three to five seconds." This is what mother, Veronica Batton, told KSHB in a story by Lindsay Shively, March 24th.  Veronica Batton emailed her doctor with concerns about a cough. She agreed to be tested for the coronavirus, but the test results were not back by the time she went into labor. According to KSHB, Batton claimed, it took a full week for the results to come back, four days after she gave birth to her baby girl at St. Luke’s East Hospital in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.   While waiting for the test results, Veronica had no contact with her newborn daughter other than the 3-5 seconds directly after delivery, the story reports. Christopher Frizzelle, writing for The Stranger out of Seattle, reports that separating newborns from their mothers if the mother tested positive for COVID-19 is the recommendation of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is based on CDC recommendations. "But if the mom is a PUI or is COVID-positive, the recommendation from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) is that medical staff should maintain social distancing of at least six feet between the mom and the baby. In other words, 'Not to do skin-to-skin contact. And the mom goes through labor in a mask. Can you imagine going through natural childbirth, breathing, working, in an air mask the whole time? And then we deliver, and we try to keep them separate from each other.'" Gretchen Vogel with Science posed the question in a recent story: “Do newborn babies need to be separated from mothers infected with the new coronavirus?” Vogel reports, “The scant data available have led to apparently contradictory recommendations: Some health authorities, including in China and the United States, recommend isolation of newborns from their infected mothers; others, including the World Health Organization (WHO), strongly recommend breastfeeding and keeping mothers and babies together, while taking precautions such as the mother wearing a mask.”