For pregnant women, pandemic made hunt for drug rehab harder

There's a growing movement to get help for pregnant women who are struggling to stop using drugs rather than take away their babies

After using drugs on and off for years, Megan Sims wanted to get clean again. But she couldn’t bring herself to stop during the coronavirus pandemic, even when she discovered she was going to have a baby. She had been to rehab before but couldn’t fathom how to do it while pregnant. Sims, a 28-year-old from North Carolina, was forced to confront her heroin addiction like never before when her drug use was reported to child protective services last summer. “None of my relapses had had a consequence until this last one,” she said. Social workers urged her to go to rehab, but none of the services were adequate because most substance abuse programs consider pregnancy to be high risk. Through word of mouth, Sims found UNC Horizons, a substance use disorder treatment program at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine designed for pregnant women and mothers.