Little House of Miracles

     Thanks to my friend Miss Whitny Doyle, who happens to write for the New Mexico Alibi, for keeping us all informed of the changes being made in our state due to the financial cuts to medicaid and medicare.  She recently reported that the "state's only residential substance abuse treatment clinic for pregnant women, Casita de Milagros, will be closing on July 1, 2011. This clinic provides prenatal care and treatment to pregnant women who use drugs and alcohol."  Well, I don't know about you, but this is a serious disservice to the women of New Mexico.  Not only did this clinic treat women with substance abuse during pregnancy, but they partnered with Reflejos Familiares and Vision to help them get basic living necessities and taught them how to create a safe living environment for their new family.  Thankfully, these additional services will still be offered as an outpatient service, but Casita de Milagros will no longer be used for inpatient treatment. 
      While the topic of drug and alcohol dependence during pregnancy draws out major moral judgement by others, it is still area in women's health that needs to be addressed.  While some may say they don't believe in "Addiction" and that people can quite if they really "feel" like it, may not know the real meaning of addiction.  So let me define it for you...Addiction is defined as physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances (for example alcohol, tobacco, heroin and other drugs) which crosses the blood-brain barrier once ingested, temporarily altering the chemical milieu of the brain. So basically, drug and alcohol addiction isn't just a bad habit one can stop on their own.
       My guess is who ever voted on removing medicaid funding for this service did not do their homework. I consider myself a novice researcher, but I was able to look at several different websites for information about pregnancy and substance abuse.  According to the National Survey on Drug use, 4.5% of pregnant women aged between 15 and 44 years old, used illicit drugs in the past month between 2008-2009.  While this might not seem like a large number for some, but I think because of the moral stigma associated with drug and alcohol use during pregnancy, it is under reported by mothers in fear of back lashing from the health care community.  The interesting thing I found while reviewing websites like CDC, IHS, New Mexico Department of Health, and 2009 National Survey on Drug Use & Health, was that alcohol and tobacco use was highly reported and illicit drug use was not reported enough.  Furthermore, the website by HRSA, Women's Health USA 2010, alcohol and illicit drug use were not identified on the maternal health status report. Which means to me that, by it not being identified as a women's health indicator, a goal can not be set to address it.
        My point being after reading and reviewing all this information is, perhaps if we as women and representatives of our community make issues like this worthy of notice rather then having members of the "research" community report on low-birth weight babies, preterm births, and all the issues that can also result from drug use make headlines, only then will places like Casita de Milagros be standing to meet our needs.  I think it is important to address preterm births and low-birth weight babies, but these are outcomes of 9 months of prenatal care where we could have made an impact on these health indicators in our state.  So while "they" meaning those in charge of making cuts like this to health care programs, who think they may be saving money, really they only increasing the cost it will take to care for the outcomes of their decisions.  I'd be interested to see how this will have an impact on New Mexico in the next 5 years...

Here is the link to the article: http://alibi.com/news/37375/The-Miracle-of-Treatment.html