Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m also a migraine sufferer. There are Rx meds today that didn’t exist six years ago.

And narcotics only show up in the urine for 2-4 days. Given that the OP was using the medication very sparingly, the timing must have been extraordinary bad luck.

Phenobarbital (which is not a "narcotic"; it's a barbituate) can show up in urine for 15 days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were taking Oxycontin or Vicodin for migraines during your pregnancy, there was a very good reason for them to call CPS.

No, there really was not. She was taking them AS PRESCRIBED, with the doctors who prescribed them in the hospital, and the baby was born without any signs of withdrawal.

I agree with the PP who suggested a birth center. I wonder if part of the issue is hospital adminsitration, where the nurses are employees, but the doctors are contractors, so there's a lack of coordination and agreement.

Anonymous wrote:If you were taking Oxycontin or Vicodin for migraines during your pregnancy, there was a very good reason for them to call CPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m also a migraine sufferer. There are Rx meds today that didn’t exist six years ago.

And narcotics only show up in the urine for 2-4 days. Given that the OP was using the medication very sparingly, the timing must have been extraordinary bad luck.

Anonymous wrote:I’m also a migraine sufferer. There are Rx meds today that didn’t exist six years ago.

Anonymous wrote:You are smart to think ahead. CPS stops at nothing and having this issue pop up again is the last thing you want.

Great suggestions on here. Thinking totally outside the box, what if you gave birth at a birthing center where there might be more privacy? And talk to the people you plan to deliver with ahead of time? And get your doctor and lawyer on board with prewritten letters that the medication is approved for pregnancy, or that you had this issue before and that you will test negative next time if you decide not to take the medication again, etc.?

Find out from an attorney if they will call CPS regardless if you test positive next time or not. Have your prewritten attorney and medical letters ready to roll about possible implications to the hospital if they report you again regardless of test results. I would SUE if they report you again. Stop at nothing and don't take this $hit. You have rights!!!

We had CPS on us for a different issue (due to a nanny situation), and I am still traumatized by it 5 years later. I have found that most CPS workers are rabid and ruthless, and stop at nothing (as you have seen from experience). Find out your full legal rights, get your doctor and attorney on board with written documentation ahead of time, and get all your ducks in a row in case you need to be on the defensive immediately.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to be a CPS investigator and have investigated positive toxicity cases. I am sorry that you were treated the way you were treated. What happened to you should not have happened.

I think that the nurse who called CPS in the first place when you tested positive was in the right. It is not the job of a mandated reporter to substantiate allegations or not. It is their job to report what they learned and let CPS investigate it. I completely understand your frustration though.

I think that once your baby tested negative, realistically, that should have been the end of it. Sometimes CPS investigates things further than they need to because it's not totally clear what is going on.

Whenever I was assigned a case like this, I was required to track down all the children of the mother in question, whether they were in her custody or not, and either confirm that they were not in her custody legally (with court documentation to verify) or interview them to assess for risk. I was also required to do a home assessment for all open investigations to determine whether the home was safe for a child.

What was NOT required was attitude. Part of being a CPS investigator is recognizing that literally none of the people you are investigating are going to be happy to see you. Most of the investigators I worked with were good people but they took a rather dim view of the families we worked with. This is largely due to burnout and the reality that in that job, you often see the worst of people and are often not supported by their agency in ways that are helpful. I saw a lot of babies who did test positive for heroin. Once I was in the NICU with a baby I was assessing whose mom had ghosted and I stayed there and held the baby because I felt like as a human being and as a mother, someone should be there holding that baby while she was going through a terrible experience at age 72 hours. When I got back to the office, my supervisor gave me crap for spending too long assessing a nonverbal child.

As for what you should do now, I think that it is really important to talk with your doctor about your experience and ask what will happen to you at the hospital given this previous experience. If this was something that just happened to you, I would say that you should contact the child welfare agency that sent the worker to you about getting the allegation itself removed from your record. Sadly I have not heard about a situation in which the mother tested positive for a narcotic where the baby also did not test positive, so I am not sure how my agency would have handled your situation. I do know that there is a fair hearing board that can be contacted after you receive a determination, but there is usually a timeframe during which you have to do that and I suspect that it is long past for you.

In any case, I am really sorry that this happened to you. Situations like these and attitudes like the one you experienced is largely why I am in a different field now.

No, the nurse who reported her was NOT in the right. This was a prescribed medication, taken under supervision of an MFM and OB, who were still active in this woman's care. There was ZERO reason to suspect abuse. The call never should have been placed, and the hospital should put safeguards in place to ensure that something like this never happens again. I mean, narcotics are administered IN LABOR - are you going to call CPS for that as well?