Residents of the American state of Utah Lacey Don Christenson and Colby Glen Wilde hid their newborn daughter's heroin addiction for two months. It is reported by The Washington Post.
According to the newspaper, their child's addiction became known after a 26-year-old girl and her 29-year-old husband were caught trying to rob a Walmart store.
The girl, who became the couple's third child, was born on April 9 in a Utah hospital. Immediately after birth, the doctors left the couple alone with the baby, and the parents injected the girl with the first dose.
Police later said that Christenson had been using heroin throughout her pregnancy, and her daughter was born with an addiction. During a search of this family's house, law enforcement officers seized a large amount of various drugs.
The other two children were tested for drugs and tested positive for methamphetamine. The youngest girl had not only heroin in her blood, but also methamphetamine and morphine. As a result, the parents were arrested by the police, the children were taken away by the guardianship authorities.
As WP notes, infants born to opioid addicts often suffer from neonatal withdrawal syndrome (NAS), which includes a variety of withdrawal symptoms, including tremors, seizures, hyperactivity, vomiting, dehydration, and inability to gain weight.