Proposed bill to track drug-exposed babies
Pa. lawmaker: Data will quicken response
A state senator from Northampton County is preparing to introduce legislation requiring the Pennsylvania Department of Health to track the number of births to women who use opioids and other drugs during pregnancy.
The bill that began being circulated for co-sponsors on Friday by Sen. Lisa Boscola, a Democrat from Bethlehem, would require the count to be done in real time to allow a prompt response when numbers are rising in a given county. Ms. Boscola said she plans to introduce the legislation on Nov. 8.
“Reporting should not be up for debate,” she said. “We’re not going to know what’s going on without reporting. When you know the numbers, we can respond quicker.”
Infants born substance-dependent became a reportable condition with Gov. Tom Wolf’s disaster declaration in 2018, but the expiration of the order in August created uncertainty about tracking in the future, Ms. Boscola said. That’s why the reporting requirement must be written into statute, she said.
Ms. Boscola first introduced Pennsylvania’s reporting bill in 2017, and it was unanimously passed by the state Senate in 2020 before dying in the House. Reintroduction of the legislation in November also follows a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation that found a 60% spike in the number of mothers in Fayette and Greene counties giving birth to substance-exposed children in West Virginia, from 1in-16 substance-exposed births in 2017 to 1-in-10 births in 2020.
The total number of births at Morgantown hospitals by Pennsylvania moms more than doubled during the three years to 741 in 2020 from 327 in 2017.
West Virginia tracks eight substances in real time that women may be using while
pregnant. The Pennsylvania Department of Health only tracks children exposed to opioids before birth and who experience the most serious signs of substance dependence — high-pitched crying, poor feeding, trembling, easily startled responses — which can be subject to caregiver interpretation.
In 2020, the department added benzodiazepine and barbiturate dependence as reasons for reporting substance withdrawal in newborns.
Pennsylvania’s monitoring is limited to 2-year-old data gleaned from hospital discharge records rather than testing of the umbilical cord or other lab screening methods that can render results in as little as 12 hours. The state Health Department’s most recent report was 2019 and did not reflect the rising trend in drug- exposed births in Fayette and Greene counties.
A Health Department spokeswoman said the problem of opioid-exposed newborns in Fayette and Greene counties had been easing in recent years, based on the information that Pennsylvania collects.
“We remain committed to the fight against substance use and its effect on our fellow Pennsylvanians, especially our youngest residents,” a department spokeswoman said in a statement Monday. The department was continuing to focus on opioid dependency in newborns.
One researcher physician said that might be a shortsighted public health policy. “It’s not about one substance or another,” said Stephen W. Patrick, a neonatologist and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy in Nashville, Tenn. “It’s about creating systems that are responsive to the needs of families,” considering exposure to myriad substances, including tobacco and alcohol.
The reporting breakdown is not unique to Pennsylvania: Some 400,000 children are born in the U.S. exposed to drugs each year during pregnancy, but only 5% are identified at birth, Dr. Patrick said.