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More than two babies are born drug addicted every week at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s hardly ever a time when we don\u2019t have a baby in withdrawal in our NICU,\u201d said Kelly Leonard, who has been a nurse in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit the past 25 years and has been shift coordinator for the past two years. <\/span><\/p>\n Kelly said of the 1,400-plus deliveries last year, 15 percent were tested for maternal drug use and 8.5 percent came back positive. The statistic is even more severe nationwide. In 2013, according to the latest available data from the Center for Disease Control, a baby was born addicted to narcotics every 25 minutes in the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n Kelly\u2019s daughter, Kylie, also works in the NICU as a volunteer.<\/span><\/p>\n Upon entering the NICU, multiple things barrage the senses: the buttery, warm smell of a newborn, the rhythmic beat of multiple heartbeat monitors and the flutter of nurses tending to tiny babies. <\/span><\/p>\n About 20 infants usually occupy the NICU at any one time. The coos of the premature babies are almost soothing and combine to fill the room with a symphony of happiness. But, in the corner of the room, there is a baby with a very different type of cry. It\u2019s a cry that Kelly and Kylie know all too well. It is the distressing scream of an infant in withdrawal. <\/span><\/p>\n It’s a baby in pain.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, this phenomenon has become so ubiquitous that it has been given a name, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, or NAS, and Muncie is no stranger to this national epidemic. <\/span><\/p>\n According to the latest available data from the New England Journal of Medicine, admissions of infants suffering from withdrawal into NICUs nationwide have nearly quadrupled from 2004 to 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n Kylie Leonard helps administer care to the victims of neonatal abstinence through the Cuddler program, which enlists the support of volunteers to give NAS babies stimulation, and to comfort them when they are in pain or distress. The cuddlers are assigned to babies for their entire shift. They have skin-to-skin contact with the babies, they read to them, sing them lullabies and change their diapers. <\/span><\/p>\n The cuddlers do everything they can to make these babies comfortable, especially when babies are suffering from the painful symptoms of withdrawal.<\/span><\/p>\n Free spaces on the NICU walls are decorated with signs for each baby. One indicates with sparkles and various shades of pink that a princess is sleeping in her crib. Another dons the goals the nurse made for the day to be accomplished by a tiny baby boy. The NICU at Ball Memorial does everything it can to make certain these babies are cared for and comforted.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese [NAS] babies are very miserable,\u201d Kylie said. \u201cThey\u2019ll have shaking fits. I wouldn\u2019t quite describe them as seizures, but they will shake and they will scream. A scream from them is completely different. You can hear the pain. It\u2019s uncontrollable. Once they get to that state, it\u2019s hard to calm them back down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Around 10 years ago, Leonard and her coworkers began to notice an increase in babies addicted to painkillers and other drugs. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s really when we had the birth of [our] Cuddler program,\u201d said Kelly. “People had heard about (the increase in addicted babies) in big cities for a long time, and when we did start seeing it, that\u2019s when we established our Cuddler program.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Aside from the agonizing screams that come from NAS babies after they\u2019re born, there are other indicators that a mother has been using.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t even need to know that they were positive for meth, specifically,” said Kelly. “They can\u2019t sit still.\u201d Heroin moms, on the other hand, tend to be sluggish and sleep for extended periods.<\/span><\/p>\n The Finnegan scoring system, a narcotics withdrawal scale, is also used. If the baby\u2019s score is too high, he or she will be moved into the NICU for monitoring and treatment. Scoring looks for tremors, muscle tone, convulsions, sweating and the telltale sign, the high-pitched cry.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2014, the Indiana General Assembly added legislation that required the State Department of Health to establish a task force to study and work on improving the state\u2019s issue of NAS babies. <\/span><\/p>\n The NAS task force created a report that came up with ways to spot NAS babies early, how to test for NAS and other ways to help mothers and their children.<\/span><\/p>\n Article continues after video.<\/em><\/p>\n