On top of physically recovering from childbirth, new moms are often faced with a flood of emotions after delivering a baby. Caring for a helpless newborn while also dealing with the logistics of postpartum bleeding, potentially a C-section scar, and little sleep can be incredibly stressful. What’s even more stressful, however, is being accused of taking drugs and having CPS called on you despite never having touched them in your life.
A mom on TikTok named Rachel W. experienced this exact scenario. And now, she’s warning other pregnant mothers about the seemingly innocuous bakery items that caused a false positive hospital drug test so no one also has to live through the same trauma.
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The TikTok mom explained that the hospital called CPS after she tested positive for drugs.
In mid-May, Rachel posted a TikTok video of herself detailing how the hospital where she delivered her daughter called Child Protective Services on her.
“I was about a week or two weeks postpartum with my second-born, and we were living in Virginia. I wake up to a phone call from Child Protective Services at like 8 a.m.,” she explained. “I answer the call, and I’m immediately thinking they’re calling the wrong person, they have the wrong number. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is not for me.”
CPS then told Rachel that her daughter’s umbilical cord tested positive for morphine and codeine.
At first, Rachel thought there must have been a mix-up at the hospital.
“I’m like, ‘There’s a mistake. I’ve never done drugs in my whole, entire life. There’s no way. You have the wrong baby’s umbilical cord,'” Rachel recalled in the clip. “They’re like, ‘No, it’s your baby.’ They schedule a drug test at our house, and I am not OK emotionally.”
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Her husband connected the dots; she tested positive because of poppy seed bagels and muffins she ate during pregnancy.
After Rachel told her husband, David, about the CPS call, the explanation dawned on him. “He immediately goes, ‘Oh my word. Rach, it’s from the poppy seeds that you ate weeks before,'” she said.
She continued: “Before I gave birth to Tikva, I was like, maybe 38 weeks pregnant, 39 weeks… and I was craving poppy-seed anything, everything bagels that have poppyseeds on them. I was craving lemon poppyseed muffins, and I would eat like one or two a day.”
A couple of days before Rachel delivered, she went to a bagel place and got a half-dozen bagels with poppy seeds.
“And so I had all these bagels I was eating every single day,” she added. “And that is why I tested positive.”
CPS showed up at her house, where she took a drug test and was 'treated like I am a drug addict.'
“I have to pee in front of her like I am guilty. And then she starts telling me, ‘Even though it doesn’t look like it, your baby’s going to probably go through some withdrawals. So here’s the number for the rehab center,'” Rachel recalled. “And I had to sign a form that said I’m going to be a mother that cares for my baby and that I’m not going to be on drugs as if I am guilty. She was treating me like I was guilty. It was so scary.”
As Rachel noted, a woman in Pennsylvania had her baby taken away from her for this reason.
“It was so traumatic because I’m being treated like I am a drug addict and I can’t take care of my baby,” she said. “Meanwhile, Tikva is literally in my mother-in-law’s lap sleeping peacefully, no withdrawals, none of that.”
In the comments, TikTok users reacted to her horrifying story.
TikTok users sounded off in the comments, with one person writing, “When I tell you… CPS does everything but what they’re supposed to do. This was traumatic for no reason I’m so sorry. ”
Another person commented, “okay I’m going to stop chowing down on poppy seed bagels next week to give myself a month to get clean I guess .”
A fellow mom even had a similar experience.
“This happened to me, same test,” she shared. “My baby was in the NICU at the time and they stopped allowing me to breastfeed him, they also called CPS. I paid for a hair follicle test and CPS had me do one, both negative of course. I still wasn’t believed. It was so traumatic.”
“This EXACT thing happened to my sister with her first. Horrifying,” another TikToker wrote. “I guess that MOST hospitals have the tests that can distinguish whether they’re from poppy seeds or the actual drug. But a lot don’t.”
