When Dr. Francheska Gurule sees pregnant patients who use drugs or alcohol at the clinic where she works in Albuquerque, she says their “fear has always been very palpable.”
As a family doctor board-certified in addiction medicine and working in the field for the last decade, Gurule says she knows patients worry about the stigma they’ll face when they disclose their drug use. But “the number one reason” they withhold their drug or alcohol use “is because they don’t want their baby to be taken from them.”
“That fear has always existed,” Gurule told Source NM, but has become more marked in the year since New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered the Children, Youth and Families Department to seek immediate custody of newborns diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome or substance exposure. No exceptions…