In our society, we grossly overstate the effects of in-utero substance exposure and minimize the importance of the caregiving environment. And it's getting worse. 25 years ago, child welfare was not notified, and no infant was removed for being "substance exposed". Today, hundreds of thousands of birthing people and their children are reported to child welfare for drug use alone, and over half of all infants removed in the US are removed due to substance use. This epidemic of family separations is not based upon the accumulation of any new scientific data. To the contrary, research has consistently shown that the effects of in-utero substance exposure are subtle and confounded by the caregiving environment. This is, in short, a manufactured epidemic: grounded in increasingly punitive statutes and hospital "test and report" policies and compounded by the growing carceral complicity of health professionals.

The goal of Doing Right By Birth is to re-center the care of pregnant people who use drugs, their children, families, and communities on science, compassion, and human rights. We wish to flip the script from a focus on drugs to supporting early childhood development. We will accomplish this through cross-sector collaborations, legal-medical-partnerships, and health professional convenings and trainings.