OP, too late now but that CPS worker had no legal right to enter your home without permission without a court order, although the law would have required them to be allowed confidential interviewing of children suspected of being the victims of abuse or neglect (which would not have included the other children when you gave birth, to my thinking). I would think as well that the hospital should have a policy about how mandated reports are handled and who decides in a situation like yours that a circumstance (e.g. the positive drug screening when you had taken prescribed medication) meets the legal criteria for reporting--e.g. who decides and who reports, given multiple medical professionals are involved in a hospital situation.

Also, for what it's worth, I took a look at the state laws (not in the DC area) where I live, and ALL the pertinent clauses in state law specifically refer to ingestion of controlled substance for MONMEDICAL purposes. Additionally, I know someone who had a history of substance abuse, cleaned up, and had a false positive screening when she delivered prematurely--the subsequent analysis contradicted the screening test result.

Definitely talk to your doctor, become informed what the legal authority of CPS is--the very fact that a report was made in the past increases your likelihood that ANY report for ANY suspected child neglect and abuse gets screened in for investigation, and it is far from unknown for an investigator to claim legal powers he or she doesn't have.

I think even jurisdictions where there is a history of excess in CPS matters there have been some positive changes in view of the opiate crisis. I know someone who has been on suboxone treatment for quite a few years after struggling with a pill addiction for a time. She continued to take the medication throughout her pregnancy and beyond with the knowledge and blessing of her medical providers and had no problem with CPS.

It's possible there could be complaint proceedings you could use regarding the individual CPS investigator if there was any violation of agency policy in the course of the investigation. As someone who many years ago was victimized by a CPS agency, I know that it can be scary to use administrative recourse--but it turns out these agencies and the people who work in them get surprisingly nervous when they fall under the same kind of scrutiny they exert on others (maybe not so surprising!).

This is what happens when small-minded, rigid people are given a tiny bit of power to abuse. Unfortunately, you ran into two of them at the same time. By definition, it cannot be child abuse to take prescribed medication as prescribed because the patient is relying on a learned intermediary to treat symptoms that indicate the medication. The nurse did not report facts, she reported her own conclusory, and ignorant, speculation. The "investigator" was incompetent and entirely unsuited to the job. This is all too common.

Cases like this cry out for corrective systemic litigation.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Your body doesn’t know you have a prescription. Babies suffer withdrawal symptoms whether or not your opioid has a doctor’s note. She may have needed a narcotic for her migraines, but the CPS call makes sense.

If you come in and say “I took this prescribed medication, as prescribed,” with the history described here in the EMR, correctly accounting for what is found in a drug test, and cooperating fully in treating any symptoms the infant has (and here there seem to have been none), what exactly is the reason it makes sense to call CPS?

Mandated reporters are mandated by law to report any level of suspicion, not to use their discretion to decide whether it is likely a real problem.

For those that are licensed, they can lose that license if they approach it as you recommend. Honestly, I don't blame them for not holding your advice above the law, especially with a license at risk.

The problem is all those mandated reporter busybodies who report every little thing. Yes they are instructed to report. However if you are a case with CPS, you will be traumatized even if you are innocent. Very few mandated reporters and cps workers have common sense (which is not so common apparently) to tell if your child is truly in danger.
I was reported for nothing and also got “unsubstantiated”, luckily in my state there was a big lawsuit several years ago and now they don’t put you in the database for unsubstantiated. However I am afraid it will pop up during divorce or some other stuff.
The worker was ok but still it was a horrifying experience.
The reporter was a school counselor who was supposed to help my child.
Instead she traumatized the whole family.

Anonymous wrote:

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

I am one too and very severe. The majority of the medications are the same except the new CPRG shots. Triptans and the "preventatives" were around then and I've been offered many pain killers but never those. No decent neurologist would give those out if they knew someone was pregnant. I used to get asked at every appointment for years and had to take a pregnancy test for a few years at each appointment.

Sumatriptan is Category C and can be used in pregnancy in cases where benefits are judged to outweigh risks -- it is considered to be less counter-indicated in pregnancy than opiods/narcotics. Botox shots are a newer therapy and are also Category C. Beta-blockers and amitriptyline are older meds but also often used for migraine prophylaxis in pregnancy.

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

I am one too and very severe. The majority of the medications are the same except the new CPRG shots. Triptans and the "preventatives" were around then and I've been offered many pain killers but never those. No decent neurologist would give those out if they knew someone was pregnant. I used to get asked at every appointment for years and had to take a pregnancy test for a few years at each appointment.

Those medication are not associated except maybe as a last resort for migraines. As someone who has migraines and worked at CPS, there is clearly more to this story.

Did you read the part where the MFM showed up AFTER the nurse had already called CPS? The order of events according to OP: showed up with opioids in urine, hospital notes it’s her prescription, baby has at least one sign of NAS (early birth). Do you know most RX abusers have prescriptions? Obviously OP is not a drug abuser, but it absolutely makes sense for an a mandatory reporter to call with these criteria.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Your body doesn’t know you have a prescription. Babies suffer withdrawal symptoms whether or not your opioid has a doctor’s note. She may have needed a narcotic for her migraines, but the CPS call makes sense.

jfc. NO the call does NOT make sense. Do you think CPS should be called after women are administered narcotics during labor? Or after delivery for pain? What part of "this was prescribed medication taken with the close supervision of the doctor who delivered the baby in the same hospital" do you not understand?

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.

Well, yes, but I am not sure why you think this is relevant.

OP says she was using a narcotic -- as you note, this rules out phenobarbital.

Phenobarbital would be a really strange choice for ongoing migraine treatment and/or prevention, given what we know about it now and what else is available. "... research has shown that any use of barbiturates increases the risk of episodic Migraine becoming chronic, and it makes it horribly more difficult to get chronic Migraine back to episodic." https://www.healthcentral.com/article/phenobarbital-used-anymore-migraine-preventative

So why on earth bring this other medication up?

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.

Your body doesn’t know you have a prescription. Babies suffer withdrawal symptoms whether or not your opioid has a doctor’s note. She may have needed a narcotic for her migraines, but the CPS call makes sense.

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.

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

This chart comparing state laws may be of interest:

https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/maternity-drug-policies-by-state