Hospitals across the country reported mothers to authorities after they tested positive for medications used routinely in millions of births.

Amairani Salinas was 32 weeks pregnant with her fourth child in 2023 when doctors at a Texas hospital discovered that her baby no longer had a heartbeat. As they prepped her for an emergency cesarean section, they gave her midazolam, a benzodiazepine commonly prescribed to keep patients calm. A day later, the grieving mother was cradling her stillborn daughter when a social worker stopped by her room to deliver another devastating blow: Salinas was being reported to child welfare authorities

What happened to Salinas and Villanueva are far from isolated incidents. Across the country, hospitals are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those very same substances on subsequent drug tests, an investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal has found.

    • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyzEnglish
      31·
      11 days ago

      This is Texas we’re talking about here… of course they’re not going to work it out.

        • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          MO and OH are technically not on the Bible Belt, yet they are still MO and OH. There’s a pervasive sickness going through the U.S., and very few places are coming out unscathed.