LOUISVILLE — Mention prescription pain pill addiction in Kentucky and the image is of an eastern Kentucky adult or a fly-by-night physician cashing in on a drug epidemic. That’s not entirely accurate. The problem is statewide and both urban and rural.

But picture this: a two-day old infant visibly in pain, crying without interruption, crying around the clock, its body rigid and its skin mottled and blotched.

It happens in Kentucky more often than people realize. Women addicted to painkillers become pregnant and if they don’t get treatment before birth, their baby enters the world an addict.

Mary Burnette, the program director at Independence House, a residential treatment program in Corbin for women with substance abuse problems, said 14 of her 15 current clients are addicted to pain medication.

She said she and her staff “prefer to get the women early in their pregnancy,” but that’s not always the case. If the mother comes in too late in her pregnancy, the child may be born an addict.

“The babies — they can’t say no,” Burnette told a committee of legislators overseeing the implementation of a bill to curb the illegal sale and overprescription of the drugs. “They don’t have any choice about what’s put into their bodies.”

A drug-dependent baby is better than one scenario, however.

Burnette told the story of a 44-year-old client who came to Independence House in the seventh month of her pregnancy. She’d received no pre-natal care to that point.

“The first thing we did of course was to get her to a doctor,” Burnette told the lawmakers. “The baby was dead. It had been dead for a month.”

The woman already had 10 children but she only had contact with two of them. “She didn’t even know where most of them were. After she left us, she was in good shape and I just hope she’ll stay that way,” said Burnette.

According to a series of stories by Laura Ungr of The Courier-Journal, University Hospital in Louisville has treated 132 drug-addicted babies in the past eight years and the University of Kentucky treats between 40 and 100 each year.

Ungar told the committee Wednesday that nationally the financial impact of drug-addicted babies — nearly all of whose treatment is paid by Medicaid and taxpayers — went from $190 million in 2000 to $720 million in 2009.

The babies have higher incidences of birth defects, lower birth weights and more die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. The long-term effects aren’t known but experts suspect problems like those of children whose mothers consumed alcohol during pregnancy and who often suffer long-term problems.

The meeting was held at The Healing Place in Louisville, a residential treatment facility for women. The organization also operates other facilities, one for men in Louisville, and another for women in Campbellsville.

Service providers praised the lawmakers for passage of the bill — but the reaction isn’t altogether positive.

Many in the medical industry have complained reporting requirements to the state’s electronic drug tracking system is burdensome and denies some legitimate patients timely and needed pain treatment. Physicians have also expressed concerns about legal liability and patient privacy.

Many of their concerns come not from the actual legislation but from emergency regulations written by the administration of Gov. Steve Beshear and the Kentucky Medical Licensure Board. Critics, including some lawmakers who supported the legislation, say those regulations “exceed legislative intent” and require more onerous reporting than the lawmakers intended. Final regulations to replace the emergency regulations are due to go before a legislative commission in about a month and the committee can approve them or find them deficient.

Lawmakers could also make changes to the law in the 2013, said Rep. John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville, who co-chairs the implementation task force and helped sponsor the bill.

He said lawmakers have been in communication with both the administration and the Administrative Regulations Review Committee in an effort “to simplify the regulatory scheme.” Tilley said some complaints are justified while others are the product of misunderstanding.

“I think there is a very honest and sincere effort to get this right,” Tilley said.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.