Pain Pills' Littlest Victims by Arian Campo-Flores. The Wall Street Journal. December 28, 2012.
Between 2000 and 2009 the number of newborns showing withdrawal symptoms from opioids tripled according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. In terms of absolute numbers in 2009, more the 13,000 babies were diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome. The cost for treating these babies comes in around a mean of $53,400. According to the article there seems to be some evidence that painkiller addiction in babies may be affecting babies physiologies more than cocaine in the "crack baby" outbreak of a few decades ago. No universal treatment protocol has been developed due to lack of research on the syndrome.
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