A young Pleasant Grove mother has been indicted after authorities say her newborn baby girl was born addicted to heroin and had to spend one month in an Intensive Care Unit while she went through withdrawals. 
 
 A Jefferson County grand jury on April 15 indicted 21-year-old Alexandra Nicole Laird, according to court records made public Tuesday. She was initially arrested May 1, 2015 and has remained free on bond since then. 
 
 Laird on March 29, 2015 gave birth to a baby girl at UAB Medical West, court records show. Routine newborn testing performed on the day the baby was born turned up positive for opiates and amphetamines, both controlled substances. The baby on April 6, 2015 was transferred to Princeton Baptist Medical Center where she received treatment for the withdrawals. 
 
 Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said Laird later admitted to detectives that she used heroin one to two times a week for at least five months of her pregnancy. Because of the severity of the baby's illness, Reid sought, and received, an enhanced charge of chemical endangerment of a child against Laird, which is a Class B felony. 
 
 Laird does not have custody of her daughter. "You won't know you've truly victimized this child until much later in life when she has trouble in school, trouble functioning,'' Reid said. 
 
 She also faces an unrelated drug possession charge after she was arrested again less than two months after her daughter's birth. In that case, she and a man were pulled over during a traffic stop in Tarrant, records show. The man she was with was arrested on an outstanding warrant. A search of the vehicle turned up 38 hydrocodone pills. Neither Laird nor the man claimed ownership of those pills. 
 
 In an affidavit claiming hardship to qualify for a court-appointed attorney, Laird said cleans houses for a living and is self-employed. In those records, she listed her monthly living expenses at $450 and her monthly disposable income at $50. Her only possessions of value, she wrote, is a television and bed valued at a combined $200. 
 
 Laird is set to be in court on the child endangerment charge in July. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a measure that pledges greater efforts to protect drug-dependent newborns and assist their parents. 
 
 A sign marks the entrance to the Neonatal Therapeutic Unit at Cabell Huntington Hospital, where staff members have acted to treat an alarming number of drug-dependent newborns, in Huntington, West Virginia, October 19, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 
 
 The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act also stresses drug treatment and overdose prevention to help stanch the nation’s heroin and opioid drug epidemic. 
 
 Obama said in a statement that 78 Americans die from opioid overdose every day, and noted that the legislation included only modest steps to address the epidemic. 
 
 “I am deeply disappointed that Republicans failed to provide any real resources for those seeking addiction treatment to get the care that they need,” Obama said. “In fact, they blocked efforts by Democrats to include $920 million in treatment funding.” 
 
 The bill was passed nearly unanimously by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. 
 
 Efforts to enforce provisions to protect newborns and help their parents come in response to a Reuters investigation last year titled “Helpless & Hooked.” 
 
 The new law requires that the federal government and every state follow a 2003 law that was routinely ignored. That law called on states to require hospitals and social services to report, track and assist drug-dependent newborns and their families. 
 
 Reuters found that no more than nine states were following that requirement. Most children born to addicted mothers, including many mothers who were taking prescribed methadone, were not being reported by hospitals as required by law. Often, that was because medical workers feared involving child protective services, as the existing law requires. When cases were reported to social services, Reuters found, efforts to protect the child and help the parents often were limited. 
 
 The failures came at a cost. Reuters found more than 110 babies since 2010 died under preventable circumstances after being sent home to families ill-equipped to care for them. Experts said far more children have likely died but gone uncounted. 
 
 The new law promises a non-punitive approach that includes “safe care plans” aimed at keeping newborns at home with their parents, who will receive additional help. 
 
 “This is a step forward for vulnerable babies who, due to an opioid dependency, will begin their lives facing enormous challenges,” said Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the Senate subcommittee on children and families. “Reuters’ initial reporting shined a light on a darkness that had enveloped far too many lives. There is much more work to do but this is a genuine step forward.” 
 
 Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which initiated the measure, said it will track state actions. 
 
 “These reforms are an important part of our broader efforts to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic and provide these vulnerable families a better chance at a brighter future,” Kline said in a statement. 
 
 In 2013, the latest year with nationwide hospital reporting, 27,315 babies were diagnosed with newborn drug withdrawal syndrome, a five-fold increase from a decade earlier. 
 
 Reuters found that one drug-dependent baby was born on average every 19 minutes in the United States. Some suffer shaking, crying and feeding problems as they battle withdrawal. 
 
 Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the broader addiction law was “no more than a half measure” without more funding. Wyden has co-sponsored a measure setting aside money for substance abuse treatment for parents in danger of losing their children. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate. 
 
 Jim Greenwood, a former Pennsylvania congressman who championed the 2003 law, said the deaths Reuters revealed represent “a national disgrace and glaring failure at the federal, state and local level to implement Plans of Safe Care for infants.” Greenwood, now president of a Washington, D.C.-based biotechnology group, applauded the new measure “to improve the health and safety of these babies and their families.” 
 
 Stephen Patrick, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University and leading researcher on the condition, said the new law is “good news” but added: “Wish there was funding that came with it.” ||||| A young Pleasant Grove mother indicted earlier this year after her newborn baby girl was born addicted to heroin is pregnant again and back behind bars on another child endangerment charge. 
 
 Police today obtained a formal warrant against Alexandra Nicole Laird, 21, and a Jefferson County judge ordered her jailed without bond until the baby's birth. She is estimated to be between 18 to 20 weeks pregnant. 
 
 "I'm doing my damndest to try to prevent any further damage to this child, since it's obvious the mother doesn't seem to care,'' said Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid. 
 
 A Jefferson County grand jury on April 15 indicted Laird on the first charge. She was initially arrested May 1, 2015 and had remained free on bond since then. Laird on March 29, 2015 gave birth to a baby girl at UAB Medical West, court records show. Routine newborn testing performed on the day the baby was born turned up positive for opiates and amphetamines, both controlled substances. The baby on April 6, 2015 was transferred to Princeton Baptist Medical Center where she received treatment for the withdrawals. 
 
 In that case, Reid said Laird later admitted to detectives that she used heroin one to two times a week for at least five months of her pregnancy. Because of the severity of the baby's illness, Reid sought, and received, an enhanced charge of chemical endangerment of a child against Laird, which is a Class B felony. 
 
 Laird does not have custody of her daughter. "You won't know you've truly victimized this child until much later in life when she has trouble in school, trouble functioning,'' Reid said at the time of Laird's indictment. 
 
 She also faces an unrelated drug possession charge after she was arrested again less than two months after her daughter's birth. In that case, she and a man were pulled over during a traffic stop in Tarrant, records show. The man she was with was arrested on an outstanding warrant. A search of the vehicle turned up 38 hydrocodone pills. Neither Laird nor the man claimed ownership of those pills. 
 
 In late August, Laird was arrested again for failure to appear in court. A condition of her previous child endangerment charge required her to not commit any other crimes while out on bond, which Reid said she did when she failed to show up for a court hearing. She then went before a judge who revoked her bond and administered a court-ordered drug test, which was positive. 
 
 She was remanded to jail in the Bessemer Cutoff on Sept. 8. It was then she admitted to using heroin three times a day, Reid said, and admitted to being pregnant which authorities confirmed with a pregnancy test. 
 
 Reid went before Jefferson County Circuit Judge David Hobdy today and argued for no bond, claiming that the unborn baby's life is in danger of continued heroin exposure. 
 
 "This is a sad case, no matter how you look at it, as the mother's heroin addiction is more compelling to her than the health and welfare of this unborn child,'' Reid said. "But make no mistake, sad or not, law enforcement will hold this mother accountable and vigorously defend and protect the well being of the child, who is innocent of all of this and simply struggling for life." 
 
 Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney Bill Veitch agreed. "The whole thing is just sad,'' Veitch said. "Very sad."
– In what police describe as "a sad case, no matter how you look at it," an Alabama judge has ordered a suspected drug addict to remain behind bars until she gives birth to her second child. Authorities say Alexandra Nicole Laird, 21, gave birth to a baby girl who tested positive for opiates in March. She later admitted to using heroin one or two times a week for most of her pregnancy and was charged with chemical endangerment of a child, says Pleasant Grove Police Lt. Danny Reid. In the months that followed, she was charged with drug possession and failure to appear in court, reports AL.com. Jailed last week, she told officers she was again pregnant and using heroin daily, Reid says. "I'm doing my damndest to try to prevent any further damage to this child, since it's obvious the mother doesn't seem to care,'' Reid told a judge Tuesday, securing a second child-endangerment charge against Laird, who is believed to be 18 to 20 weeks pregnant. "You won't know you've truly victimized this child until much later in life when she has trouble in school, trouble functioning,'' he told Laird at an earlier hearing. Laird does not have custody of her 1-year-old daughter, who spent a month in the ICU after birth for withdrawals, reports AL.com. In a sign of America's opiate epidemic, Reuters previously reported that one drug-addicted baby is born every 19 minutes, according to 2013 numbers. (Addicts have died from withdrawal in jail.)