Opioid-addicted babies continue to be born at an alarming pace at Reid Health's Mother-Baby Care Center.
Through the first four months of the year, 23 babies were born with an opioid addiction, according to statistics presented by Lisa Suttle during a Heroin is Here meeting last week.
In 2015, there were 13 such births through the first seven months before the number skyrocketed to a total of 54 for the year.
All told, there have been 64 babies suffering from opioid withdrawal born in the past nine months, the length of a pregnancy.
Last year's total was a 74 percent increase from 2014's 31, which itself was a 181 percent increase from the 2013 total of 11. Before that, 15 addicted babies were born in 2012, four in 2011 and just one in 2010.
Suttle, the director of Reid's psychiatric service line, said the Mother-Baby unit also is seeing methamphetamine and marijuana problems impacting babies.
Reid representatives are meeting with Cross Road Christian Recovery Center for Women, located just south of Richmond, to establish a program for addicted mothers to receive treatment, Suttle said.
She said April showed a slight downward trend, offering a glimmer of hope for the rest of the year.