Neonatal abstinence syndrome is a terrifying thing that affects many mothers and children daily. I personally have seen NAS directly affect people in my everyday life. My cousin Nicolette had struggled with a heroin addiction for over a year up until she found out she was pregnant with a boy. When she found out she was pregnant panic grew over the whole family that she would either lose the baby due to drug use or the baby would struggle with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

     After finding out she was pregnant she was faced with the hard truth that she either had to stop using drugs or there would be harsh outcomes. Unfortunately, the addiction was too strong and the father also struggled with addiction so the drug use continued and the addiction became more powerful. As expected when she gave birth the baby was diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome and had to be given small doses of methadone to combat the irritability of the child during his withdrawal period. The baby boy had to be held at the hospital for over a week to make him healthy again. He faced many issues such as seizures, irritability and sickness.

     After careful treatment the boy was weaned off the heroin and methadone and began returning to normality. Luckily, the mother was also able to combat her addiction after seeing the scary outcomes that could come with it and she wanted to be able to be the great mother she had the potential of being. In our day it is very unfortunate that drug epidemics are a prominent thing in our society. I hope to one day beat the epidemic as a society to help our future generation to live healthy and successful lives.