Jade Dass in Apache Junction, Arizona, in July 2022.Ash Ponders/Reveal
Jade Dass was taking medication to treat her addiction to opioids before she became pregnant—which scientific studies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend. But after Dass delivered a healthy daughter, the hospital reported her to the Arizona Department of Child Safety.
Even as medications like Suboxone help pregnant women safely treat addiction, taking them can trigger investigations by child welfare agencies that separate parents from their newborns. Why are women like Dass being investigated for using addiction-treatment medications during pregnancy?
To understand the scope of the dragnet, the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Shoshana Walter and Melissa Lewis, with a team of researchers and lawyers, filed 100 public records requests, putting together the first-ever tally of how often women are reported to child welfare agencies for taking prescription drugs during pregnancy.
This week on Reveal, in an episode first aired in July 2023, follow Dass as she grapples with losing custody of her baby—and makes one last desperate attempt to keep her family together.
For more about Dass and other mothers facing investigation for taking medication-assisted treatment, read Shoshana Walter’s investigation in collaboration with the New York Times Magazine.
