Separating newborn babies from mothers with addiction does more harm than good, says doctor

Removing newborn babies from women who are suffering from addiction helps neither mother nor child, says a doctor at the forefront of a movement to keep them together. The stress of that separation, Dr. Ron Abrahams believes, has been confused for withdrawal symptoms in the past. "Whenever you put a baby in an abnormal environment, it's going to exhibit abnormal behaviour," he says. "And that was interpreted by the medical system in those days as the baby withdrawing, when it was actually withdrawing from the mother."

Babies born into circumstances of addiction have usually been whisked away from their mothers immediately after birth. The newborns were then brought to neonatal intensive care units, to be monitored and treated for withdrawal symptoms. But babies are not born addicted, Dr. Abrahams says — they are born "exposed" to the drug. "Addiction is defined as seeking out the drug," he explains. "These babies don't seek out the drug, they are just experiencing some withdrawal from the drug that they were exposed to." That withdrawal can take about a week for these babies, he says, during which time there's a greater benefit in keeping them with their mothers.