A number of local agencies came together as one earlier this week to try and come up with solutions to the rising number of babies born in North Bay with an addiction to narcotics.
Police Chief Paul Cook attended the Tuesday seminar organized by the Children’s Aid Society.
More than 100 people attended including representatives from the Regional Health Centre, the Health Unit and even the school boards to name just a few.
“The idea was to bring together community leaders and some service providers to speak to the issue,” said Cook.
“I think two real goals were to raise awareness about the issue that’s taking place in our community and the second was to come up with solutions to deal with the problem.”
Gisele Hebert, the Executive Director at the Children’s Aid Society, says the numbers have been ramping up at a staggering rate with babies being born addicted to drugs such as crack cocaine, cocaine, methadone, morphine and a large number born addicted to marijuana.
“There’s an inordinate number of babies being born drug addicted in our community and proportionally they are very high when compared to other communities, not just in northern Ontario but across Ontario,” said Hebert who noted 10 alone were born in January with what’s called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.
Hebert says there hasn’t been a lot of research done on the long term effects of these drugs on the babies development.
“A couple months ago we had exhausted all our foster homes here in North Bay and having our kids outside communities and we exhausted all those placements as well as having to rent and staff a cottage here. We finally decided that this was bigger than the Children’s Aid Society,” she added.
Hebert says the addicted babies are difficult to take care of.
“The symptoms may vary in length of time or intensity, there’s usually a very high pitched cry, they are very sensitive to light, to noise, to touch,” described Hebert.
“They are often very difficult to soothe depending on the intensity, there could be tremors along with feeding and sleeping issues.”
Hebert says the Children’s Aid Society is still seeking more foster parents along with volunteers who would be willing to rock the babies at the hospital. They have also been providing clinics for foster parents to learn how to try and soothe the addicted babies.
