Confronted with an apparent escalation in the number of women giving birth to babies with heroin and other drugs in their systems, health officials in the San Luis Valley have created a neonatal drug exposure task force.
“Local providers had been starting to see an increase. We got involved in August 2014, when an intensive family therapist working for Rio Grande County Social Services came to see us because she had been seeing an overwhelming caseload of clients related to heroin use, and it was affecting children,” said Emily Brown, director of Rio Grande County Public Health.
Exposing a fetus to heroin in the womb can lead to withdrawal symptoms and other problems in the infant. And drug-addicted mothers can have trouble bonding with their babies and may often neglect the child, an outcome that can result in social service agencies removing the baby from the home.
Statistical evidence is in short supply, and developing an adequate tracking system is among the issues the task force — made up of health care, social service and law enforcement members — is dealing with.
In 2013, heroin and other substance abuse-affected newborns made up 42 percent of the 19 dependency and neglect cases filed in Rio Grande County courts, said Jody Kern, director of social services for Rio Grande and Mineral counties.
The following year, 52 percent of 23 cases filed were for children with neonatal dependency. In both years, most cases involved heroin.
Kern has no data on previous years, but in the valley, “it is very new to see so many babies involved in dependency and neglect cases,” Kern said.
Those familiar with the problem point to a decline in the amount of caused in part by development of pain medicine guidelines created by a local task force.
A crackdown nationally in the overprescribing of those drugs has driven the price up to $40 to $50 per pill or more, and many
“A lot of those people have turned to heroin because now it is more available, and people who use say it is a better high for less amount of money,” said Alamosa Police Chief Duane Oakes.
There are no inpatient drug rehabilitation facilities in the valley, Brown said.
In Alamosa County, heroin-addicted pregnant women are adding to crowding in the county jail.
“I have 92 people in my jail and we have 85 beds. Many of those are heroin issues. Pregnant females come in, and it is so very difficult for a small jail to have to deal with that issue,” said Sheriff Robert Jackson. “We do the best we can, but it is really not a pretty sight.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcghee
