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"What sounds like better state policy: helping pregnant drug-addicted women get treatment or putting them in jail? If you&amp;#039;re Tennessee, you put them in jail. That state&amp;#039;s legislature has the dubious honor of being the first to pass a law criminalizing pregnant drug addicts. Under an amendment to the state&amp;#039;s assault law, women who use drugs while pregnant can be criminally prosecuted, with their fetus or embryo as the victim. And last week, the new law secured its first arrest: a 26-year-old who admitted to using meth a few days before giving birth, after both she and her infant tested positive for the drug. One of the biggest issues with neonatal drug use is that what the average person thinks is true is actually worlds different from what the weight of the medical evidence indicates and what health care providers say works to protect mothers and babies. After the &amp;quot;crack baby&amp;quot; scare of the 1980s, it&amp;#039;s widely believed that neonatal drug use does horrific, lasting damage to babies. But that&amp;#039;s not actually the case. The use of drugs like cocaine aren&amp;#039;t good for fetuses, but the long-term effects are relatively minor, and they&amp;#039;re less damaging than, say, alcohol. It&amp;#039;s also difficult to disentangle the health issues that come from drug use itself from those that often come along with it, especially within vulnerable communities \u2014 lack of prenatal care, poor diet, stress. While using drugs during pregnancy stokes widespread outrage, public health policy is better when it&amp;#039;s made according to what works, rather than according to what feels emotionally satisfying. What we do know is that best way to help women have healthy pregnancies is to make sure they have access to good health care, including drug treatment. Prosecuting pregnant women for drug use doesn&amp;#039;t mean women waive a magic wand and get over their addictions \u2014 addiction is a serious illness that usually requires repeated treatment and long-term recovery support. This law means even women who want help are afraid to go to their doctors because they don&amp;#039;t want to go to jail. Women are less able to access drug treatment and end up with pregnancies that are even less healthy. &amp;quot;Every leading medical group says responding to health problems in pregnancy as a criminal justice matter is bad for babies,&amp;quot; Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, told Cosmopolitan.com. &amp;quot;Every leading medical group says this is bad for maternal, fetal, and child health. There is no role for police officers and prosecutors in prenatal care.&amp;quot; Prosecutors have gone after drug-addicted mothers for decades now, expanding child abuse laws to include fetuses and even bringing mothers up on drug trafficking charges \u2014 the trafficking route being the umbilical cord. Women who used drugs during pregnancy have been prosecuted even when they gave birth to physically healthy babies. In several states, pregnant women have been prosecuted for doing just about anything a doctor or a judge deems unsafe, including opting for a vaginal birth when a doctor recommends a caesarean section. The Tennessee law is startling because it was passed by the legislature, not created in a court by an aggressive prosecutor and a judge willing to affirm an expansive and far-reaching interpretation of the law. Its enforcement is troubling because it&amp;#039;s already being expanded out beyond its scope \u2014 the law is supposed to apply only to narcotic drugs, of which meth is not one. As legal opioid drug use skyrockets \u2014 abuse of prescription drugs, not illegal ones, is the biggest drug problem in the United States \u2014 more and more women addicted to painkillers may be staring at a jail cell if they&amp;#039;re pregnant. According to Paltrow, that separate treatment of pregnant women is the problem: Drug addiction itself isn&amp;#039;t a crime, and non-pregnant addicts do not face imprisonment simply for their addictions. But if the addict is a pregnant woman, she&amp;#039;s treated differently under the law. And that disparate treatment doesn&amp;#039;t stop at addiction. &amp;quot;These cases are not just about the hot-button issues of drug use,&amp;quot; Paltrow said. &amp;quot;This is about whether precedent will be set to have a separate and unequal set of laws that make women the moment they are pregnant subject to policing, surveillance, and control by the state.&amp;quot; The Tennessee law creates potential for even more expansive monitoring of pregnant women&amp;#039;s behaviors. Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, both legal, may do harm to developing fetuses \u2014 should a pregnant woman who has a glass of wine or can&amp;#039;t quit smoking go to jail? What about a woman who partakes in potentially dangerous-to-the-pregnancy activities like skiing? It sounds far-fetched, but women in other states have been prosecuted for suicide attempts where they survived and their fetus didn&amp;#039;t. Tennessee is also home to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest for-profit manager of corrections and detention centers in the United States. As a for-profit prison company, their business model depends on an expanding incarcerated population. &amp;quot;Six million women become pregnant every year in the United States,&amp;quot; Paltrow said. &amp;quot;These are laws that are opening the doors for women to fill the private profit-making prisons that are growing around the country.&amp;quot; Follow Jill on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a29005/tennessee-neonatal-drug-use/>