Lullaby a Broken Song
These photos were taken at a long-term therapeutic community in New York City with a special program for pregnant women and infants. Women who are addicted to opiates voluntarily commit themselves to the program, in which mother and child are slowly weaned off the drugs after the baby is born. Should a mother stop using opiates while pregnant, she runs the risk of her baby going through withdrawal in utero. Instead, the babies are put on an opiate drip after birth and closely monitored. Women stay on with their children to learn parenting and job skills and to find suitable housing and out-patient care.
I don't know what happened to any of these families after they left. I had intended for this to be an ongoing project. They all promised to keep in touch, but I haven't seen any of them since.