But why don’t they just ask the mother whether she took any medication or drugs she shouldn’t have? Given what happened in the article, the information provided by the mother would probably be more accurate anyway. Routinely not believing women is on brand, though. Again, we’re talking about women with absolutely no history of drug abuse. I’d seriously like to know how many women with no prior history of drug abuse start doing drugs just as they are getting pregnant to warrant routine testing.
Another problem with these kinds of tests is that they are not accurate enough. If you test urine samples routinely, the majority of your tests will be false positives. (Example: you test all pregnant women, 1% take drugs, the test is accurate 98% of the time. Congratulations, 2/3 of your tests are false positives.) That’s why you only do those tests if you have a suspicion based on other data and not just test everyone.
But why don’t they just ask the mother whether she took any medication or drugs she shouldn’t have? Given what happened in the article, the information provided by the mother would probably be more accurate anyway. Routinely not believing women is on brand, though. Again, we’re talking about women with absolutely no history of drug abuse. I’d seriously like to know how many women with no prior history of drug abuse start doing drugs just as they are getting pregnant to warrant routine testing.
Another problem with these kinds of tests is that they are not accurate enough. If you test urine samples routinely, the majority of your tests will be false positives. (Example: you test all pregnant women, 1% take drugs, the test is accurate 98% of the time. Congratulations, 2/3 of your tests are false positives.) That’s why you only do those tests if you have a suspicion based on other data and not just test everyone.