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Bacheyie said in the years after he founded the NICU in the early 1980s, “if we saw a baby with opiate withdrawal symptoms, it would be once or twice a year.”

The 60 in 2016 does not include the nine newborns with mild symptoms who didn’t need admission to the NICU. The severity of withdrawal symptoms ranges, depending on whether the mother took opioids throughout the pregnancy, how much she took and how frequently, Bacheyie said Wednesday as the NICU announced a new program — enlisting volunteers to snuggle with NICU newborns — that will be especially helpful to babies suffering withdrawal.

Bacheyie said the babies with the worst symptoms are basically drugged throughout the pregnancy. “The symptoms can be very severe,” he said.

“They’re very tense, irritable, difficult to settle, due to the irritation of their brain because the medication affects their brain while in the womb.”

In the worst cases, babies have convulsions, feeding problems, elevated heart rate, vomiting and diarrhea that gets so bad their bottoms suffer from exfoliation requiring pastes and medication. Bacheyie, a pediatrician, said the new cuddling program will help all babies who don’t get much physical contact with their parents. But the benefit will be “much more so” for opiate withdrawal babies.

“If it is keeping them quiet, cuddled, touched, rocked, spoken to, it calms them down and reduces the chance you need drugs,” to treat the withdrawal symptoms, he said.