First lady visits Nashville, promotes 'Be Best' campaign
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — First lady Melania Trump spent the afternoon Tuesday in Nashville visiting with children born dependent on drugs as she hit the road to promote her "Be Best" campaign to help children.
The first lady met with experts and families at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt during her first domestic trip to highlight the initiative.
"Her passion is to shine a light on the opioid crisis. She wants to continue to learn," said Mrs. Trump's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, of the visit. She said the first lady asked how she can best use her role to help.
Mrs. Trump received a briefing on the facility's work before meeting some of its patients and visiting privately with families who have infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Mrs. Trump brought with her fleece blankets with the White House seal that she purchased to give to the babies. She also spent time playing with several toddlers, including one hooked up to a mobile IV, in a playroom that included doll houses and a train set.
"How old are you? What are you playing? You want to show me?" she was overheard asking one of the children. At one point she was seen blowing bubbles.
Mrs. Trump has done little personally to publicize the campaign around the country since she unveiled it at the White House in May.
A week after the announcement, the first lady was hospitalized for five nights for kidney surgery, then spent several weeks out of the spotlight recuperating before resuming a public schedule. She has since made two trips to the U.S.-Mexico border to meet with adults and children affected by the president's policy of separating migrant families who cross into the U.S. illegally.
The first lady did promote "Be Best," which focuses on children's well-being, social media use and opioid abuse, when she accompanied the president to London this month. She has also discussed it during surprise visits in the Washington area, including an unannounced trip to Microsoft's Innovation and Policy Center last week.
Mrs. Trump visited with a group of students who help the computer software maker with its work on youth-centered online safety. Being good citizens online is one focus of the first lady's campaign, though her husband is routinely criticized for using Twitter against his foes.
The issue that took her to Tennessee is neonatal abstinence syndrome, which occurs when a baby withdraws from drugs — usually an opioid painkiller — that he or she was exposed to in the womb. Withdrawal causes such symptoms as irritability, muscle tremors, difficulty feeding and sleeping, and breathing problems, according to Dr. Stephen Patrick, a pediatrician and neonatologist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital.
Opioids are fueling the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history. About 70,000 Americans died of a drug overdose last year, according to preliminary numbers released this month by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's a 10 percent increase from the previous year.
The practice of first ladies using their positions of prominence to promote issues and causes they care about can be traced to Martha Washington, America's original first lady. She was an advocate for Revolutionary War veterans, said Anita McBride, executive-in-residence at American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
One of Mrs. Trump's recent trips to visit a facility for migrant children was overshadowed by a hooded jacket she wore that had, "I really don't care, do u?" scrawled on the back. The garment choice for the Texas trip ricocheted across the internet, spawning memes about what message the former model may have been trying to send.
Her spokeswoman said it was just a jacket with no hidden message. But the president undercut that by later tweeting that his wife was really saying she doesn't care about the "fake news" media.
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