Eating a Costco salad almost ruined my life – I had no idea

A pregnant mother grabs a healthy lunch on her way to the hospital, only to have her newborn baby taken away.

The dystopian story unfolded when Susan Horton, a stay-at-home mom in Northern California, took a few bites of a Costco pre-made salad as she prepared to give birth to her fifth child in August 2022. .

Then she went into labor and soon welcomed her daughter Halle into the world.

Horton believed everything was fine. But the next morning, she received shocking news from a nurse in the maternity ward. The test came back positive for opiates.

Mother Jones said the exhausted mother was completely confused as she had avoided any narcotic painkillers during the birth.

“Are you sure it was mine?” she questioned the nurse, claiming she had never taken illegal drugs in her life.

Horton initially suspected that her urine sample had been mixed with someone else’s urine sample.

Then she remembered that her last meal contained poppy seeds. Poppy seeds are known to naturally contain trace amounts of opiate residues, even after being processed.

Positive results after ingesting the cooking utensil are so common that the U.S. Department of Defense has warned soldiers against eating poppy seeds as it may affect test results.

Studies have also shown that urine drug screens can be easily misunderstood, with false-positive rates as high as 50%.

But staff at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Santa Rosa, California, were determined to escalate the situation further, the newspaper reported.

The nurses reported the unsubstantiated findings to child welfare authorities, and social workers soon arrived to take the girl into custody.

“They had unique evidence that I had taken something,” said an anguished Horton. “And that was a mistake.”

“Mom and Dad claimed that Costco’s salad with poppy seed dressing was the culprit,” the doctor wrote in his notes. “We cannot verify whether this results in a positive test,” another doctor wrote.

The situation further escalated after a second test came back positive for the opiate.

Unlike many other states, California law requires more than a positive drug test to formally charge a parent with child abuse.

Unfortunately, Ms. Horton missed several appointments before giving birth. Concerned about COVID-19 and the health conditions of their other children, the bewildered parents explained.

The hospital’s social worker decided to proceed with the lawsuit, as medical authorities consider missed medical exams to be a red flag for substance abuse.

Horton and her husband begged doctors, insisting there was no need to keep their baby in the hospital.

“I’m not a drug addict,” she complained. Her husband tried to stop the hospital and called police, according to records reviewed by Mother Jones.

However, things took a turn for the worse when the enraged parents refused to allow investigators to enter their home or interview family and friends.

So Halle’s caseworker obtained a court order to leave the precious package with her grandparents. Parents were explicitly forbidden from spending time alone with their newborn daughter.

A few days later, Horton appeared in court, where a caseworker argued that Horton’s alleged drug use posed a danger to children.

To regain custody, Horton agreed to another drug test under the supervision of officials and eventually agreed to have her home inspected.

After nearly two weeks, the Child Welfare Agency, apparently satisfied, decided to withdraw the petition. The judge dismissed the case and the family was reunited.

The newspaper has reached out to Kaiser Permanente, the state’s largest private employer, for comment.

Horton told Mother Jones: “Right now, I’m constantly questioning my choices in my head.”

“I always have this looming feeling that at any moment (Child Protective Services) could come knocking and take the kids away.”

Oddly enough, Ms. Horton is not the first mother to have her children removed over this issue.

Watchdog groups, including the ACLU, have been studying the issue for years and have called for stronger protections for mothers and children.

“People should be concerned,” Dr. Stephen Patrick, dean of health policy and management at Atlanta’s Rollins School of Public Health and a leading neonatal researcher, told Mother Jones.

“This could happen to any of us.”