Children's hospitals treating more heroin addicted babies

Nurses at Akron Children's Hospital say they are more busy taking care of heroin-addicted babies than ever before.

Last year they treated 120 heroin-addicted babies in their intensive care unit. So far this year they've already treated 81 babies, and project that they'll treat even more.

"It's very heartbreaking to watch them go through withdrawal," clinical nurse specialist Connie Teal told News Net 5.

According to Teal it takes 25 days to nurse an addicted baby back to health. Nurses are also treating babies born to heroin-addicted mothers.

"If they end up on the maximum dose of morphine that they can get, then we add a secondary medication, and then we have to slowly work to wean them off those medications before they can be discharged from the NICU," Teal said.

The faces of heroin addiction: