The Problem
The Largest EPIDEMIC of Our Generation
An estimated 5.1 million child-bearing age women dependent on drugs/opioids and/or alcohol are having unintended pregnancies resulting in their child being damaged in utero for life - requiring lifelong medical, mental, social and other special services.
Our Nation's Largest EPIDEMIC Finds
An Impacted Child Born Every Minute
426,000+ born every year
The Impact
To see the effect of opioids on impacted children, play an NBC News report of a grandmother’s caring for two children around 5-years old
To see the effect of alcohol on impacted children, play the following except from PBS News Hour that shows sections of the brain missing in MRIs
To see the financial impact, view the TN Comptroller's testimony before the Opioid task force regarding the massive cost these impacted children incur
In 2021, 53.5% of children under the age of one placed into state custody were removed from the home due to parental alcohol or drug abuse.
A 25-year retrospective study of children in foster care due to parental opioid abuse found that as adults
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33% were themselves addicted
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an astounding 59% had been incarcerated
In the US, an estimated four million childbearing age women on Medicaid are dependent on opioids and/or alcohol and are having more than 426,000+ unintended, permanently impacted pregnancies each and every year. Using an estimated lifespan of 25 years, these children cost $3.2 trillion in more than 24 state and federal government agencies. Such pregnancies result in adverse birth outcomes, often incurring permanent neurodevelopmental and physical impairments with the risk of lifelong medical, mental, social and other special services needed.
This problem does not stop but is compounded from generation to generation as children of addicted women follow in the same (albeit, even more destructive) patterns.
A partial list of agencies funding these life-long impacted children and making it hard to see the full financial/social impact include the following: Medicaid, Dept of Children’s Services, Dept of Health and Human Services, Medicaid, Dept of Education (including BEP), Dept of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Dept of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Dept of Corrections, Admin Office of the Courts, Office of Criminal Justice … and others.