BORN ADDICTED: Increasing number of babies hooked on drugs

MURFREESBORO - The city's newest resident is wailing inconsolably inside the neonatal intensive care unit at Middle Tennessee Medical Center, where nurse-manager Brooke Sherrell works.

The baby boy is shaking, sweating, has diarrhea and is feeding so poorly that he needs intravenous fluids just to stay properly hydrated.

Within hours after his birth, a clinician administers methadone to the innocent newborn and his symptoms slowly subside.

He will need to be weaned off the methadone little by little to avoid recurrence of those symptoms. The entire process could take weeks to months.

Read more at The Tennessean.

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