The Marshall Project, Reveal (PRX), Mother Jones, USA Today

She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away

Shoshana Walter

Hospitals use inexpensive — and often faulty — urine drug screens to identify newborns affected by drugs in the womb. And each year, “tens of thousands of infants are reported annually to authorities for in utero drug exposure, with no guarantee that the underlying tests are accurate,” according to The Marshall Project’s winning investigative report. The investigation reflects interviews with “dozens of patients, medical providers, toxicologists and other experts, and collected information on more than 50 mothers in 22 states who faced reports and investigations over positive drug tests that were likely wrong,” The Marshall Project reported. The news outlet also “pored over thousands of pages of policy documents from every state child welfare agency in the country.”

That effort resulted in an in-depth examination of how a false positive on a drug test, from innocuous sources such as poppy seeds or decongestants, can lead to officials taking newborns from parents.

“Every pregnant woman in America ought to read this,” one judge said. “This story should be posted in every birthing room as a cautionary tale for medical personnel to verify before reporting a mother for drug use.”

Read the Winning Work

She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away.

Hospitals Gave Patients Meds During Childbirth, Then Reported Them For Positive Drug Tests

She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad. Child Services Took Her Baby. (Podcast)