Once you hear the cry of a newborn baby going through the pain and trauma of withdrawals, you never forget it. You want to cradle the tiny, precious baby and take away all the pain, but due to the drug withdrawals, these special babies do not enjoy being cuddled. But due to the wonderful support from the Cornucopia Committee, the Royal Hospital for Women is breaking ground in their care and research of substance-dependant newborn infants.

The Royal Hospital for Women was the first in the world to establish the effectiveness of an outpatient clinic for infants suffering from drug withdrawal. Prior to this, infants would be kept in hospital for months, often away from their mothers, until their withdrawal subsided.

The ‘Royal’ was the first hospital to establish a link between strabismus (lazy eye) syndrome and methadone used in pregnancy. An untreated strabismus may lead to blindness and increased vigilance has helped prevent optical dysfunction in many methadone-affected babies.

Through the research program, it has also been proven that feeding opiate-exposed infants with breast milk substantially reduces the severity of withdrawal during the newborn period. This is a very important finding, because many drug-using women are not encouraged to breast-feed for fear of drugs in the breast milk causing harm to the infant.

There is an urgent need to conduct more studies in this field to improve the care for this very vulnerable newborn group and funding for research is invaluable in furthering work in this area.Dr Kei Lui, Director of the Newborn Intensive Care Unit and his dedicated staff of Clinicians and Specialists are very mindful and appreciative of the support from the Cornucopia Committee for helping fund this vital research program.