How a salad got a woman on the child abuse registry.

This post originally appeared on Filter Magazine.

Jane* didn’t think much about the Sam’s Club salad she’d eaten days before she was to give birth in March 2021. But the salad—covered in poppy-seed dressing—would land her on the New York State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment.

This subjected the new family to multiple, stressful visits from Child Protective Services, which removes thousands of children from their homes. There were 14,657 children in New York State foster care in June 2021 (the most recent available data). Most were under the age of 6.

One senior director of foster care told News 10 that year that the state was “at the forefront of trends in child welfare,” and attributed the high number of young kids in the system to parents’ drug use: “In our experience, one of the biggest drivers for the higher rate of children age 5 and younger in foster care is a result of parental neglect and maltreatment impacted by opioid and methamphetamine use.”