A mother has revealed how a Costco salad led to a terrifying experience in which her newborn was taken from her at birth.
Her nightmare began in August 2022, when Susan Horton was very pregnant. I ate the prepared salad that contained poppy seeds.
When she gave birth at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in California the next morning, she was told she couldn’t take her healthy newborn baby home.
Tests detected opioids in the mother of five’s urine, which doctors interpreted as a sign she was abusing prescription medications.
A horrified Horton pleaded with them that she had “never done drugs in my life,” and through the process of elimination, it was discovered that the test must have been caused by poppy seeds, which contain opiates and are known to appear in tests. of drugs. .
Susan Horton, pictured above with one of her children, had to fight for two weeks to get her youngest son back after a failed drug test.
What followed was a humiliating two-week battle to get his daughter Hallie back.
Mrs. Horton had to leave the hospital without her son and was hauled before juvenile court to prove that she was not a danger to her son.
she said Reveal News: ‘He (the doctor) said, “Well, your urine tested positive for opiates.” I said, “That doesn’t make sense. I’ve never done drugs in my life.”
‘They refused to take a new sample. They took her away. I had to leave the hospital without her.
‘I felt very emotional and I was alone. I just gave birth the day before, I’m not sleeping and I felt really attacked.
“They had singular proof that he had taken something and it was wrong.”
His urine tested positive for the opioid codeine, which is found in prescription cough medicines and sometimes in unwashed poppy seeds.
The salad I had consumed was an “everything” chopped salad kit with poppy seeds from Costco.
The substance is contained in the seed pods of the plant and can reach the seeds during harvest and then test positive in a drug test.
Last year, the US military warned its soldiers not to eat bagels or muffins covered in poppy seeds that contained them, warning that this could affect drug test results.
And in March of last year, two mothers in New Jersey sued a hospital over their drug test results, saying the positive results were because they ate bagels with poppy seeds.
Online, the University of Florida Health System warns that while poppy seeds do not contain enough opioids to intoxicate someone, the “exquisitely sensitive” nature of drug testing means the seeds can still generate a positive result.
However, despite Mrs. Horton’s protests. The hospital alerted child protective services, which sent an officer to conduct an interview.
The mother reveals her story to warn others of the dangers.
When she refused to sign a safety plan, a document that would allow the agency to interview her friends and family and search her home, they got a judge to sign a document beginning the process to take her son.
The mother, who resides in Santa Rosa, had to appear in juvenile court to assure the judge that she did not pose a danger to her son. After negotiations, she also agreed to a home inspection and more testing before a judge dismissed the case and allowed her to take the baby home.
Ms Horton had no idea she would be drug tested after giving birth, as there is a patchy system for doing this across the country.
In most cases, it is up to hospitals and doctors to drug test mothers, which is usually only done for babies of mothers suspected of substance abuse or who have a history of substance abuse. .
Only four states (North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Kentucky) require hospitals to test both new mothers and their children if medical professionals suspect they use drugs.
In 2022, estimates suggest that more than 35,000 cases of mothers testing positive for drugs were reported, resulting in more than 6,000 children being separated from their families.
Horton said she was revealing her story to warn others about the risks and call for more safeguards to be put in place against false positives. He doesn’t want hospitals to continue taking test results at face value.
A spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente, where she gave birth, said they could not comment on her specific case, but they took their role seriously.
They added that the hospital always conducts a “multifaceted evaluation before reporting someone.”
A CPS official suggested to Reveal News that a positive drug test alone typically does not warrant an investigation.