When meconium, the first feces from a newborn, was used to screen for maternal drug use, nearly 15% of samples were positive for at least one illicit drug, according to a pilot study. "The most frequent substances were marijuana and opiates, and those can have serious consequences for babies," said Gaurav Gupta, MD, PhD, from Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Amphetamines and cocaine were also found, he added.
In addition to signaling potential harm to the newborn, a positive screen should alert caregivers to the potential for maternal drug dependence and for possible child neglect, he said here at the College of American Pathologists 2015 Meeting. In their retrospective analysis, Dr. Gupta and his colleague, Barbarajean Magnani, PhD, MD, also from Tufts, used meconium screening to identify maternal drug use in samples collected from January 2013 to July 2014 at the Tufts Medical Center.…
