Susan Horton, a stay-at-home mom of nearly 20 years, never expected her final meal before giving birth to turn her life upside down.
Before heading to Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, California, in August 2022, she ate a poppy seed salad from Costco. Little did she know, those poppy seeds would cause her to test positive for opiates.
The next morning, after giving birth, hospital staff informed Horton that her drug test had returned positive. She was shocked, especially since she had avoided pain medication and narcotics.
Despite her insistence that the poppy seeds were responsible, the hospital reported her to child welfare services. The following day, social workers took her newborn daughter, placing her in protective custody.
Urine drug screens, which hospitals use to comply with federal and state laws, are known for false positives—particularly in cases like Horton’s, where common foods like poppy seeds can trigger erroneous results.
Experts say these quick tests can produce false positives up to 50% of the time, but confirmation testing is rarely performed before hospitals report to authorities.
For Horton, the situation was devastating. “They had a singular piece of evidence that I had taken something, and it was wrong,” she said.
Though Horton’s baby was eventually returned, the experience has left her questioning her actions as a mother and living in constant fear of another investigation.
The use of unreliable drug tests in labor and delivery units has raised concerns among healthcare experts, yet hospitals across the country continue to report positive results without confirmation, leading to stories like Horton’s.
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