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Far from suspecting the effects that this food would have on her, a young mother tested positive for two drugs. Doctissimo enlightens you.
It was a close call. On TikTok, a young mother from the state of Virginia tells how by consuming a simple everyday ingredient, she tested positive for two dangerous drugs. Her baby, also tested positive by social services, had to be weaned.
A positive test
Although Rachel claims to have never taken drugs in her life, she has nevertheless been accused of taking drugs. And for good reason: American social services detected two illicit substances in the umbilical cord of his daughter, Tikva: morphine and codeine.
“It had been a week or two since I gave birth to my second child. I wake up around 8 a.m. and I get a call from Child Protective Services. I immediately think they are wrong and that they dialed the wrong number“, she explains.
Except that in reality this call was indeed addressed to him. Social services explained to her that the umbilical cord that connected her to her daughter had tested positive for morphine (extracted from opium, obtained from poppy flowers) and codeine (also extracted from opium poppies, a species of herbaceous plant). However, these two substances, due to their pharmacological effects, can cause breathing difficulties or even death in the event of an overdose.
“I then say to myself: ‘There is a mistake. I have never taken drugs in my entire life. It’s impossible. You analyzed the wrong umbilical cord‘”, Rachel continues.
Hypothesis refuted by social services, who tell her that they will come see her at home to carry out a new test.
Bagels and muffins involved
Rachel immediately decides to call her husband to warn him of this call. For him, there is no doubt: the poppy seeds present in large quantities in his wife’s diet are to blame.
“He said to me: ‘Oh my God. Rach, it’s because of the poppy seeds that you ate weeks ago”.
At the end of her pregnancy, the young mother admitted to having developed an obsession with poppy seeds.
“Before I gave birth to Tikva, I was maybe 38, 39 weeks pregnant… and I craved anything with poppy seeds in it, poppy seed bagels, lemon poppy seed muffins. I ate one or two a day.”
However, according to Raphaël Gruman, dietitian nutritionist interviewed previously on this subject, “There are several varieties of poppy, including one particularly rich in alkaloids called “white poppy”, which is used for pharmaceutical purposes, and which is different from the black poppy used in cooking.
The newborn had to be weaned
Faced with this news – and the new visit of social services to her home – the young woman feels the blow.
“I had to urinate in front of a woman (from social services) as if I was guilty. And then she starts telling me: ‘Even if he doesn’t seem affected, your baby will need to be weanedhere is the number of the rehabilitation center'”laments Rachel. “And I had to sign a form saying I was going to take care of my baby, and I wasn’t going to do drugs anymore. It was so scary…”
Since this story, the young mother and baby have been doing well.