This may seem totally absurd or even absurd for those who do not know anything about it, but more and more hospitals, especially in the United States, are calling on people to cuddle babies on a voluntary basis in order to make up for the shortcomings of mothers. difficulty, and in particular those of drug-addicted mothers. An increasingly popular practice that also helps to reduce withdrawal symptoms due to neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Neonatal withdrawal syndrome
Practice regularly adopted in the United States at the breasts of hospitals and also developing in France, volunteering as a cuddle of infants does exist.
These infants are mostly affected by neonatal withdrawal syndrome which is a disorder affecting infants born to drug-addicted mothers. The body of the fetus whose mother is an addict is getting used to the drugs he receives while still in the womb. After birth, the baby becomes addicted to the drug to which he no longer has access, showing withdrawal symptoms.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome is a postnatal withdrawal syndrome that also refers to withdrawal associated with alcohol and certain medications.
Infants of mothers still using drugs, opiates or other addictive substances at the end of pregnancy and at the time of delivery present, 24 to 48 hours after birth, a withdrawal syndrome, suffer several symptoms such as digestive disorders and breathing, excessive crying, hyperexcitability, convulsions, or fever and sweating. Low birth weight, lower head circumference, excess mortality of sudden infant death, hyperexcitability, are the most extreme symptoms
The contact and the interdependence mother-child can under these conditions be built then in a difficult context, with a mother little available psychically and at the same time physically for her child.
Hence the need and the importance of setting up volunteer programs that tend to create the loving, physiologically, psychologically and physically needed neonatal weaning infants that allow them to overcome this less painful especially at such a small age at the very beginning of life.
Volunteer Program to Combat Neonatal Withdrawal Syndrome
In France, an Inserm expertise relayed by Cairn.info estimates between 1,000 and 2,500 in 2003, the number of pregnant women taking Subutex, an opiate substitution treatment for opioids.
In the United States, a recent report by the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) warns of the growing dependency of pregnant women on illicit drugs and the negative and proven health consequences of newborns. The report also provides baseline assessment data to measure the effectiveness of new intervention programs aimed at reducing the use of illicit drugs by pregnant women.
It is precisely to counter such cases that volunteer programs to bring affection and emotional presence to newborns have been established throughout the United States to help these babies born addicted to certain drugs. and especially opioids. A great help for hospital nurses where volunteer volunteers bring hope into a hopelessly desperate situation.
This physical and sensory input that cuddles will thus lead to a sedation of pain and comfort primordial for the psychological and physical health of infants as well as their development. Research elsewhere confirms this fact by highlighting its benefits on the sensory-cognitive development of newborns.
Similar programs in France
In France, even if the system is less focused on the consequences of drug abuse for future mothers, hospitals and associations have set up the same type of volunteer programs to provide assistance to the medical profession and nurses and to provide emotional and physical emotional support for babies with malformations, prematurity, developmental or breathing difficulties, or a difficult diet.
Undoubtedly, all babies need to be cuddled, and even more so when they are hospitalized and suffering. This practice represents a real benefit for their psychological, emotional and physical development.
