Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham will stop reporting suspected abuse or neglect to child welfare officials solely because a baby is born exposed to drugs, The Boston Globe reported April 2.
The system now requires written consent for toxicology testing of expectant mothers and infants, and tests will be limited to cases where the findings "will change the medical management" of the pregnancy, according to The Boston Globe.
The historic practice has been a concern for women recovering from addiction, and policies have varied among the system's hospitals, leading to disparities among patients, hospital leaders said.
"Those structural policies may not be written in a way that screams racism, but if you dig down deep" it creates inequities, according to Allison Bryant, MD, associate chief health equity officer at Mass General Brigham.
"We have 18,000 plus births a year, they're all in different hospitals," Dr. Bryant told the outlet. "We're really trying to get some clarity and uniformity around what we do."
The system manages hospitals with labor and delivery units in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Clinicians in those departments will now only file reports of suspected neglect or abuse to child welfare officials if there's reasonable cause a child is "suffering or at imminent risk of suffering physical or emotional injury."