Maine Sen. Angus King’s “Cradle Act” is an example of the many harmful misconceptions about maternal opiate addiction.

Sen. King’s news release describes the bill as needed to “treat drug-addicted babies.”

Babies, of course, cannot be drug addicted.

They can be physically dependent on prescribed and illicit opioids to which they were exposed in the womb.

The bill focuses on supporting nonhospital “residential pediatric recovery centers”‘ to provide “specialized care” for drug-addicted babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

It speaks to improving the maternal-infant bond.

So let’s review the errors manifest in the bill.

• It makes no distinction between mothers maintained on methadone or buprenorphine and those who are entirely clean and sober.

Are their babies to be placed in these specialized residential programs if they develop neonatal abstinence syndrome?

• Is neonatal abstinence syndrome a cause of developmental problems?

Is this not yet another misguided “crack baby” syndrome?

Note that “crack babies” was a stigmatizing label that followed these children and predicted problems never born out in follow-up research.

• In regards to “maternal-infant” bonding: why are the fathers not included?

And why not “family bonding” if the intent is to create a healthy home environment for these babies?

• How would these programs be defined and credentialed?

As the babies need medical treatment they would need to meet the standards of medical facilities with round-the-clock staffing by nurses and physicians.

Are they meant to replace hospital neonatal intensive care units?

• Is there actually a need for such programs?

Most importantly, the bill doesn’t consider the need for treatment for those mothers who are drug-addicted, either during or after birth.

If there is no recovery there cannot be healthy bonding.

Nationally, the focus has been solely on opiate addiction.

Alcohol and other drugs (including nicotine) cause well-documented harmful effects on the developing fetus.

There is a greater risk of low birth weight, preterm birth, still-birth and neonatal death with those legal substances.

Alcohol causes a greater likelihood of prolonged NICU admissions and lengths of stay and causes life-long developmental problems.

Nicotine is neurotoxic and can affect childhood and adolescent behavioral problems and increase the risk of drug addiction.

If the babies are “the littlest victims,” are the mothers criminals?

The criminalization of drug use and mandatory reporting of drug screens during pregnancy will only result in women not seeking prenatal care.

In most parts of the state there is no treatment available for pregnant women.

How then can women suffering from addiction be blamed for having to continue to use drugs?

In 1998, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation found that imprisoning pregnant drug users in not only ineffective, but also unethical and unconstitutional.

There is an oft expressed belief that incarceration would serve as a wake-up call.

It has been shown that the threat of incarceration does nothing to reduce the incidence of drug abuse.

In my practice, women avidly seek treatment.

They don’t want to harm their baby.

Removal of children to overstretched child welfare system has potential to further harm the health and development of the child.

So, what is the concern?

Is it the well-being of the child with or without neonatal abstinence syndrome?

Concern for the baby should extend to the societal issues that may predispose women to addiction.

Does this concern extend to remedying factors that harm children independently of addiction: Poverty, inequality, lack of access to quality education, homelessness and malnutrition?

The best way to help these babies is make treatment on demand available to all who need and want it, both before and during pregnancy and then after birth. And this treatment needs to be available to fathers as well as mothers.

Drug addiction is a treatable disease. Treatment saves lives and promotes healthy, thriving families.