SALT LAKE CITY — Tiny babies are our most vulnerable. Infants born to mothers addicted to drugs have an especially tough and dangerous start that is sometimes life-threatening.

"It's hard. Once it gets ahold of you, it's like it takes over," said "Natalie," a Utah mother who asked KSL to hide her identity. "Before, I said I'd never do drugs. But you don't know that until you're there, and it's really hard to get off."

Natalie said she used opioids — which are painkillers ranging from oxycodone to heroin — during both her pregnancies. She got hooked on meth and heroin at age 13.

"They start experimenting with opioids that are left in parents' medicine cabinets or grandparents' medicine cabinets," said Dr. Karen Buchi, chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Utah.

Nationwide, 1,374 babies were treated for severe addiction in 2010, up from 354 in 2006. In Utah, 600 infants a year are at risk of hospitalization because of serious opioid dependency. Of all the drugs women take, opioid addiction is the toughest for pregnant mothers to quit, according to Buchi's research.

The 'worst sickness'

Natalie said the addiction took over her life and was greater than the need for water or food.

"Imagine the worst cold or worst sickness," she said. "It's 10 times worse than that."

More babies are born dependent on opioids in Utah than ever before, Buchi said. Addiction to painkillers among women is equal to alcohol or methamphetamine, according to the Utah Department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health.

For women, hospital admission rates for alcohol and methamphetamines dropped slightly in 2014, while admissions for heroin and other opiates increased enough that they are statistically close.

"The fastest growing group to get heroin dependency in the state of Utah is young adults," Buchi said.

Identifying addicted babies

When those young adults get pregnant, they may not be able to break the addiction. Their babies are born dependent and experience the same withdrawal symptoms as an adult.

"There's a very characteristic neo(natal) abstinence syndrome that can be life-threatening and needs treatment," said Dr. Gwen McMillin, medical director of toxicology at ARUP Laboratories and professor of pathology at the University of Utah.

A hospital lab can test umbilical cords from mothers who have admitted to taking drugs or who may have taken drugs. Each hospital system determines when an umbilical cord is tested without consent, based on doctors' needing to know how to properly treat the newborn.

"Our role is to identify those babies that need extra attention, and then perhaps the families that need some social assistance as well," McMillin said.

The umbilical cords tell scientists what the baby can't, including when anything from prescription pain medication to heroin is present.

"It's much cheaper to buy heroin on the street than it is to buy an oxycodone tablet," Buchi said.

Treatment and support

She said the biggest challenge is creating a safe home environment for the little ones by working with the mothers.

"She needs to be in a treatment program and a supportive environment where she can learn to deal with her dependency but also to learn how to be a good parent," Buchi said.

Natalie has been clean for five years but says it's difficult to forget her past. She said it "killed her," knowing what she was doing to her baby, but she felt powerless to stop.

"I still live with the guilt for what I've done, and I'll never be able to get over it," she said. "It's just something I'll always have to live with for doing that to an innocent child."

Unlike Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, Utah doesn't consider substance abuse during pregnancy to be child abuse. Instead, Utah gives pregnant women priority access to substance abuse treatment programs, in which mother and baby can stay to together and heal.

For more information and help on overcoming substance abuse, you'll find the following organizations helpful:

• Project Reality: projectreality.net
• Odessy House: odysseyhouse.org/parent-rehab
• The American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence: www.aatod.org
• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: www.samhsa.gov

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