Melania Trump visits Nashville hospital for babies born to opioid-addicted moms

First lady Melania Trump flew to Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, where she was briefed on babies born dependent on drugs.

At the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Trump blew bubbles with pediatric patients and got down on kid level to play trains after attending a roundtable on treatment options for infants of opioid-addicted mothers born in conditions of withdrawal.

Crouching down to play with 4-year-old patient Essence Overton, Trump playfully complimented the child's painted nails. “Yours are all different colors. I like that,” the first lady said. CNN reports the tot then took the first lady's hand and said, “Oh! You painted yours white!”

The visit was part of Trump's new "Be Best" initiative, which she has said will focus on child well-being, social media use and the consequences of the opioid addiction epidemic.

For her visit, the first lady, who was dressed in a slate gray and white dress cinched with a wide belt, purchased about nine small fleece blankets with the White House seal embroidered in the corner to hand out to families during her visit, her spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said. The blankets are pink, blue and white.

On the flight back to Washington, Grisham told the traveling press corps the first lady spent roughly 30 minutes with a 22-year-old mother and 28-year-old father and their 8-day-old baby in their hospital room. The couple did not want to be identified.

At one point, the first lady held the baby, who was born early and was quite small, while they talked, Grisham said, adding that Trump asked how the mother planned to stay healthy now that she had a child.

“They had a pretty emotional meeting,” Grisham said, adding that the baby’s grandmother was also in the room and, at times, was crying.

Amid a national opioid crisis, Tennessee faces an epidemic of drug-dependent babies diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

As the state deals with a rising number of overdose deaths, babies born to addicted mothers are filling neonatal intensive care units in Tennessee faster than the health care system can treat them.

The Tennessean reports the number of babies in withdrawal has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2010.

The state has worked to understand what triggers the symptoms in babies going through opioid and nicotine withdrawal. Researchers at the hospital are looking for ways to reach out to and treat pregnant women with addictions.

The standard treatment is for a doctor to transfer the mother to a less harmful opioid, such as methadone or buprenorphine, and monitor usage.

While those medications can still cause a baby to withdraw, the odds improve. Mothers put on this therapy have a 60 percent chance of delivering a healthy baby compared with a 30 to 40 percent chance for women who don't receive treatment, health officials say.

Tuesday's visit isn't the hospital's first visit from the White House.

In 2014, Michael Botticelli, the White House's drug policy director at the time, visited the hospital to learn about the faculty's urgent investigation into how best to treat drug-dependent babies.

Contributing: Yihyun Jeong, Tony Gonzalez and Shelley DuBois of the Tennessean

WJAX