A new report out of Tennessee shows that the number of newborns dependent on drugs their mothers took during pregnancy is higher than ever and experts says it should be a warning to the rest of the country, NBC News reported. “At the current rate this epidemic is progressing, we are projecting more than 800 drug-dependent newborns by the end of this year,” said Dr. John Dreyzehner, the commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Health. The state has counted more babies born with symptoms of withdrawal from opiates — a condition known as neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS — than they saw in all of 2011. Because Tennessee is the first state to require reporting of NAS, experts say it’s a harbinger of a worsening national problem of pregnant women addicted to prescription painkillers and other opiate drugs.
