Baby Soap & Shampoo Set Off Positive Drug Test?!?!
That's a relief!
Babies are NOT getting high on marijuana.
Certain brand baby soaps and shampoos have been found to trigger positive tests for marijuana. Some of these products are Johnson & Johnson’s Bedtime Bath, CVS Night-Time Baby Bath, Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash and Aveeno Baby Wash & Shampoo.
Just 0.1 milliliters of the above products were found to cause a positive marijuana test result in urine samples.
There is no clear reason why these baby hygiene products cause the positive marijuana results, but we are relieved to hear that they aren't actually intoxicating, aka they aren't getting babies stoned!!!
Researchers believe the soaps or shampoos were washing off the babies' skin and trickled their way down into the little ones' urine samples.
Another question that has arose, though is why hospitals are testing infants for weed exposure in the first place? Does this happen more than one would think?
At least at at U.N.C. Chapel Hill, 10% to 40% of newborns are tested.
That's kind of a high number don't you think???
The tests are extremely selective - some might say they are even biased. Plus there is no scientific evidence that personal marijuana use by a parent correlates to child abuse. Obviously if the mother is preggers and smoking dope - that's a different story entirely.
Here's what one researcher said:
“If the issue is that the mother broke the law and therefore the child should be removed, we might want to consider going after mothers who exceed the speed limit while driving."
The biggest problem with a FALSE positive marijuana test in a baby is that it can lead to that baby being removed from their parents' care and placed in a foster home - something much more traumatic and harmful for the child than it is for the parent to smoke pot - or at least that's what one researcher says.
Here's what he said:
“Children risk enormous emotional trauma when they are torn from their mothers during a crucial period for infant-parent bonding. For the foster children, being taken from their mothers was more toxic than the cocaine.”
We personally think that cocaine use during pregnancy could be INCREDIBLY HARMFUL to one's baby, but we get the point that the researcher is trying to make. These false positive marijuana tests can have a huuuge impact on a child's life, and it all could happen because they were striving to keep their babes so fresh and so clean, clean.
That's messed up!
Tags: abuse, baby, baby blabber, dope, false, illegal, infants, marijuana, mistake, oops, positive, smoking, soap, test, wacky, weed
