Last April , Maryland resident Elizabeth Eden went to St. Joseph Medical Center to give parturition to her daughter . With no labor ramification and a sizeable babe welcomed into the world , the day should have been one of joy and celebration . Yet thanks to a well - document but often overlooked clinical phenomenon , the experience took a stressful turn .

" I was in labor . I was sitting in the bed . I was having muscular contraction . I was on a Pitocin dribble , and the Dr. came in and said , ' You ’ve try electropositive for opiate , ' " Eden   told local news stationWBAL - TV .

Recalling a long - ago example in health class – one that many of us have heard but belike paid little view to since – Eden recognize why this had happened .

" I say , ' Well , can you test me again ? And I eat a poppy seed bagel this sunrise for breakfast , ' and she said , ' No , you ’ve been report to the state , ' " Eden continued .

Routine drug screening of both mother and newborn has becomeincreasingly commonin the face of the ragingopioid misuse epidemic . In this case , St. Joseph Medical Center analyzed a urine sample distribution from Eden and concluded she had been exposed to opiates based on the sleuthing of great than 300 ng of drug per cubic centimetre of liquid ( ng / mL ) . Dr Judith Rossiter - Pratt , chief of the infirmary ’s OB - GYN section , told the station that their standard tests habituate this relatively miserable doorstep because it allows them to detect more users .

However , research conducted over the past several decade has proven that eating just one poppy seed - laden bagel or several rolls can introduce enough opiates into the body that screen do hours to several day after consumption will registerhundreds of ng per mLof urine . The seed pods of the poppy plant , Papaver somniferum , are the germ of opium – a milky fluid produced to defend the flower against crease animate being that contains a issue of psychoactive compound , admit morphia , codeine , and thebaine : the corpuscle that mould the basis of synthetic opiates , aka opioids .

While there are no opiates within the seed , they are covered in these compounds . According to a clinical pedagogy column byQuest Diagnostics , a nationwide medical examination party , the amount of opiate that we ingest in food merchandise alter between poppy harvests and the amount of washing that the seeds undergo during processing .

For these reasons , eating certain sight of poppy - sow foods or those that contain a lot of seeds can have serious repercussions for anyone who is undergoing chemical substance monitoring . Indeed , events like to Eden ’s became so vernacular that federally regularise workplace testing programs raised their morphia crosscut from 300 ng / mL to 2,000 ng / mL in 1998 in order of magnitude to lour the identification number of fictive positives from food , though Quest notes that even this number is not gamy enough to keep all example – after all , barren and delicious poppy seed cake have been shown to induct yard of ng / mL of morphine in piss .

After the failed drug test , Elizabeth Eden was not allowed to bring home her daughter home until a land - assigned societal worker value her and search the home for signs of drug misuse . Although she was take in in five days , she describes the experience as traumatizing .