Babies given the worst possible start in life

Scotland’s drug death rates among adults are among the worst in the world

I vividly remember the first occasion, while working there, that I was shown a medical device known as a Tummy Tub. These are essentially oversized buckets that are filled with water and kept at body temperature. They are needed to simulate the mother’s womb in order to comfort babies, born addicted to drugs and going through withdrawal.

It’s a devastating start to life and the effects of maternal drug dependency during pregnancy can be immediately obvious in newborn babies in just the first few hours of life. The symptoms include uncontrollable trembling, hyperactivity and high-pitch distressed crying.

Scotland’s drug death rates among adults are well document and sadly amongst the worst in the world – it’s why this week saw Scotland’s first safe consumption room opening in Glasgow. But we need to do more to address the impact that drug use can have at the other end of life’s spectrum.

Research by my party has revealed that since 2017 at least 1500 babies in Scotland have spent the first days of their lives withdrawing from drugs, officially designated as Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.

While it’s over ten years since I saw my first Tummy Tub, Aberlour are still at the cutting edge of offering interventions to help babies born in these horrific circumstances. They offer intensive residential services in Falkirk and Dundee for expectant and new mums and their babies in their Mother and Child Recovery Houses. However, the funding for this comes to an end next March.

I asked John Swinney about this at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament last week and I’ve made it clear that the Scottish Government must use the forthcoming budget to do more to make services like those offered by Aberlour sustainable.

Indeed, sustainability in drug services is such an important part of the solution to Scotland’s problematic relationship with substance use. Since Nicola Sturgeon cut the funding for drug and alcohol services by nearly a quarter in 2015, our drug deaths have skyrocketed in large part because many services went to the wall. Since that time the sector has really struggled to get back on its feet.

In large part that comes down to the fact that without stable long-term funding organisations struggle to recruit and retain experienced staff – the vital ingredient necessary for forging the kind of relationships you need to get through to people and help them to stabilise chaotic lifestyles and make a lasting change.

Funding and certainty for existing services is key to harm reduction and to saving lives, but we need more. We need to expand these interventions so they are available to people in every part of Scotland. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome or adult drug dependency is not limited to our cities or the central belt.

Through shortsighted funding decisions, the Scottish Government have exacerbated our drug deaths crisis and indeed the number of babies being born to the worst possible start in life, but in the pages of the Budget they have the power to turn things around.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and MSP for Edinburgh Western