The night before Susan Horton gave birth to her daughter, she had already gone into early labor and she wanted something quick and simple for dinner.
She feasted on a frozen pizza and an “everything” salad kit from Costco from the fridge. She remembers how delicious the salad was, and how the poppy seeds crunched in her mouth.
The next day, the 39-year-old gave birth at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Santa Rosa. But when a nurse came to her room, instead of bringing her healthy newborn, Halle, she told Horton that she tested positive for opiates in her urine and could not take her baby home.
Horton was stunned. “Are you sure it’s my urine?” she recalled asking the nurse. She had no clue how it could be positive for anything. It wasn’t until later that Horton and her family began to suspect that the poppy seeds from the salad were the likely reason for the positive drug test, which prompted a traumatic battle with authorities to prove Horton was a fit mother and not a drug user.
The hospital launched an investigation over the incident.