A young Pleasant Grove mother has been indicted after authorities say her newborn baby girl was born addicted to heroin and had to spend one month in an Intensive Care Unit while she went through withdrawals. A Jefferson County grand jury on April 15 indicted 21-year-old Alexandra Nicole Laird, according to court records made public Tuesday. She was initially arrested May 1, 2015 and had remained free on bond since then. Laird on March 29, 2015 gave birth to a baby girl at UAB Medical West, court records show. Routine newborn testing performed on the day the baby was born turned up positive for opiates and amphetamines, both controlled substances. The baby on April 6, 2015 was transferred to Princeton Baptist Medical Center where she received treatment for the withdrawals. Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said Laird later admitted to detectives that she used heroin one to two times a week for at least five months of her pregnancy. Because of the severity of the baby's illness, Reid sought, and received, an enhanced charge of chemical endangerment of a child against Laird, which is a Class B felony. Laird does not have custody of her daughter. "You won't know you've truly victimized this child until much later in life when she has trouble in school, trouble functioning,'' Reid said at the time of Laird's indictment. She also faces an unrelated drug possession charge after she was arrested again less than two months after her daughter's birth. In that case, she and a man were pulled over during a traffic stop in Tarrant, records show. The man she was with was arrested on an outstanding warrant. A search of the vehicle turned up 38 hydrocodone pills. Neither Laird nor the man claimed ownership of those pills. A condition of her previous child endangerment charge required her to not commit any other crimes while out on bond, which Reid said she did when she failed to show up for a court hearing.
– In what police describe as "a sad case, no matter how you look at it," an Alabama judge has ordered a suspected drug addict to remain behind bars until she gives birth to her second child. Authorities say Alexandra Nicole Laird, 21, gave birth to a baby girl who tested positive for opiates in March. She later admitted to using heroin one or two times a week for most of her pregnancy and was charged with chemical endangerment of a child, says Pleasant Grove Police Lt. Danny Reid. In the months that followed, she was charged with drug possession and failure to appear in court, reports AL.com. Jailed last week, she told officers she was again pregnant and using heroin daily, Reid says. "I'm doing my damndest to try to prevent any further damage to this child, since it's obvious the mother doesn't seem to care,'' Reid told a judge Tuesday, securing a second child-endangerment charge against Laird, who is believed to be 18 to 20 weeks pregnant. "You won't know you've truly victimized this child until much later in life when she has trouble in school, trouble functioning,'' he told Laird at an earlier hearing. Laird does not have custody of her 1-year-old daughter, who spent a month in the ICU after birth for withdrawals, reports AL.com. In a sign of America's opiate epidemic, Reuters previously reported that one drug-addicted baby is born every 19 minutes, according to 2013 numbers. (Addicts have died from withdrawal in jail.)