Popular Breakfast Food Causes New Mom to Test Positive for Opiates While in Labor

There’s no greater love story than the one between a New Yorker and her bagel. Before going into labor, New York resident Elizabeth Dominguez treated herself to a bagel. Little did she know that breakfast would come back to haunt her.

When Dominguez went into labor, she had to provide a urine sample, which is a standard hospital procedure. The real shock happened when the results came back positive for opiates, ABC 7 News reports. “I called my husband freaking out," she tells ABC. “I was like, ‘How is this possible? I don’t do drugs. This is not okay.’”

Thinking quick, her husband, Mark, asked her what she had to eat. She ticked off the list of her most recent meals, which included the tasty poppy seed bagel. Once he heard that, he had a good feeling the bagel was the source of the problem. But the family went through a traumatic series of events before they were able to prove how the misunderstanding came to be.

After she gave birth, the new mom was interviewed by Child Protective Services, and despite her baby testing negative for opiates, he had to stay at the hospital an extra day for monitoring. “I felt absolutely horrible,” Dominguez recalls. “I felt like a terrible mother leaving him.”

Eventually, the hospital sent a letter to the mom explaining her test was a false positive due to poppy seeds. As it happens, the seeds that come from an opium plant can contain residue of morphine or codeine.

Thankfully, the mom is back with her newborn and enjoying the newest addition to her family. “I just want everyone to know that this can happen,” Dominguez warns. “I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”

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