How best to treat opioids' youngest sufferers?

No one knows

A week old baby lies in one of the ICU bays at one of the Norton Children's Hospital neonatal intensive care units Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Louisville, Ky. This particular NICU, is dedicated to newborns of opioid addicted mothers, that are suffering with newborn abstinence syndrome, is kept dark and quiet due to increased production of neurotransmitters in newborns of addicted mothers, which can disrupt the nervous system and overstimulate bodily functions. - photo by Associated Press

W opioids — A week old baby lies in one of the ICU bays at one of the Norton Children's Hospital neonatal intensive care units Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Louisville, Ky. This particular NICU, is dedicated to newborns of opioid addicted mothers, that are suffering with newborn abstinence syndrome, is kept dark and quiet due to increased production of neurotransmitters in newborns of addicted mothers, which can disrupt the nervous system and overstimulate bodily functions. - photo by Associated Press

CHICAGO — Two babies, born 15 months apart to the same young woman overcoming opioid addiction. Two very different treatments.Sarah Sherbert's first child was whisked away to a hospital special-care nursery for two weeks of treatment for withdrawal from doctor-prescribed methadone that her mother continued to use during her pregnancy. Nurses hesitated to let Sherbert hold the girl and hovered nervously when she visited to breast-feed.Born just 15 months later and 30 miles away at a different South Carolina hospital, Sherbert's second child was started on medicine even before he showed any withdrawal symptoms and she was allowed to keep him in her room to encourage breast-feeding and bonding.

Associated Press

Associated Press