NC Drug Court

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11. Pregnant addicts and healthy babies

                                  Pregnant addicts and healthy babies
                                  If momma is using and baby is still in the womb,
                                  Baby will likely have a difficult start
                                  Unless
                                  Momma is in drug court.
                                  If not, baby is likely on her own.

From pregnant crack addicts--healthy babies. From pregnant heroin addicts--healthy babies. Drug courts make such miracles happen. As of May 2016, all but one of the 11 babies born to an addict while she was in my small-town drug court was born healthy--born a miracle baby.

Miracle babies in counties with drug courts: In 2010, the last year before the NC drug court funding cuts, 25 drug-free babies were born to addicted mothers in the 23 counties with drug courts as reported on the State drug court's Management Information System (MIS). During my 16-year tenure as a drug court judge, all but one of 11 babies delivered to an addicted mother in my court was born healthy. One Cumberland County drug court delivered 10 miracle babies during its first five years of existence. Mecklenburg County drug courts reported 43 healthy babies born to addicts in their court. (After privatization and failure of the statewide MIS that recorded and organized drug court data, efforts to resurrect it have failed to allow access to pregnancy data.

Drug treatment courts have powers which are unavailable to traditional rehab. Drug treatment courts do not wait for addicts or alcoholics to acknowledge they need treatment before putting addicts in treatment. When the addict in drug court walks away from sobriety, drug courts don't have to wait until the addict agrees to return to treatment. Like the Good Shepherd's staff, drug courts pull addicts back into treatment using tools that are unavailable in traditional rehab. Drug courts monitor constantly and react quickly to drug use and other behaviors that are averse to recovery. Drug treatment courts promptly order the binging addict into enforced sobriety, so as to prevent a use from becoming a full-blown skid row relapse. A treatment plan for addicts which fails to provide a method to return the wayward addict into treatment is like a shepherd's staff without a hook.

MEDICAL COST OF ADDICTED NEWBORNS: Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome is researched and developed in a paper by Robert Mihaly. See appendix by that title.