Advocates call for justice for drug dependent babies

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - East Tennessee Children's Hospital has received national attention since opening its neonatal abstinence unit in 2011 specially designed to care for babies suffering from drug withdrawal.

The unit was built to hold 16. But since opening, it's been over capacity.

"About 30 percent of our admissions are for NAS. When we opened the 16 bed private room area, we thought this would take care of all of our NAS babies. And that was a year ago, November 7, 2011. And since the day we opened, we haven't had an open bed down here," said nurse Carla Saunders.

"We've begun to address that last year with a lot tougher laws on drug abuse as well as meth use, and we're trying to look at what's the next step. But we literally in Tennessee have an epidemic of prescription drug use and babies being born addicted and it's... we're better than that as a state and we're going looking at every way we can to address that," said Governor Bill Haslam.

And while individuals who abuse drugs can be charged, the mothers who pass dependency to their babies while pregnant aren't.

"In the child abuse statutes they have not included fetus and embryo. So when a mother is ingested drugs and those drugs are going to her baby we're precluded from using that in the child abuse statutes," said assistant district attorney Charme Knight.

But those who have experienced the symptoms first hand, say something must be done to stop the epidemic.

"If a child is born exposed to drugs, then somebody needs to be charged with something. Somebody needs to take responsibility, and what happens is the community takes up the slack," said Tomma Battle.

Battle adopted her daughter Raven just a few days after birth.

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Advocates call for justice for drug dependent babies