Susan Horton had been a stay-at-home mom for almost 20 years, and now—pregnant with her fifth child—she felt a hard-won confidence in herself as a mother.
Then she ate a salad from Costco.
Horton didn’t realize that she would be drug-tested before her child’s birth. Or that the poppy seeds in her salad could trigger a positive result on a urine drug screen, the quick test that hospitals often use to check pregnant patients for illicit drugs. Many common foods and medications—from antacids to blood pressure and cold medicines—can prompt erroneous results.
If Horton had been tested under different circumstances—for example, if she was a government employee and required to be tested as part of her job—she would have been entitled to a more advanced test and to a review from a specially trained doctor to confirm the initial result.
I heard her talking about it on NPR earlier today. She did get her kid back, but it was a whole fucking ordeal she and her family should have never had to go through in the first place (and thank god she had the resources to fight it)
Also lovely way to start a childs life. Instead of being at the chest of its mother, it gets to be with some overworked strangers, not getting breat fed and not feeling the physical closeness necessary to build a healthy sense of security.