False positives on hospital drug tests are triggering newborn child protective services cases

One Santa Rosa hospital says in a statement it "typically gets consent to drug-test patients for medical reasons, and as a mandated reporter under state law, it refers potential exposures of newborns to illicit drugs to child welfare authorities."
photo credit: Marissa Leshnov for The Marshall Project
Susan Horton walks with her youngest daughter at their home in Cotati in July, 2024.

This weekend, a new episode of the investigative reporting radio show Reveal focuses on a Santa Rosa family and what happened when the mother went to a Santa Rosa hospital to give birth. The story's author is Shoshana Walter , an investigative reporter with the Marshall Project.

KRCB News speaks with Walter about her reporting; we began by asking about the genesis of the story and how she started reporting it.

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Reveal airs on KRCB at 5 am on Sundays. You can find the story here and here .