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Health & Saf. Code, § 123605 · Article 4. Perinatal Health Care

Health & Saf. Code, § 123605

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Each county shall establish protocols between county health departments, county welfare departments, and all public and private hospitals in the county, regarding the application and use of an assessment of the needs of, and a referral for, a substance exposed infant to a county welfare department pursuant to Section 11165.13 of the Penal Code.

(b) The assessment of the needs shall be performed by a health practitioner, as defined in Section 11165.8 of the Penal Code, or a medical social worker. The needs assessment shall be performed before the infant is released from the hospital.

(c) The purpose of the assessment of the needs is to do all of the following:

(1) Identify needed services for the mother, child, or family, including, where applicable, services to assist the mother caring for her child and services to assist maintaining children in their homes.

(2) Determine the level of risk to the newborn upon release to the home and the corresponding level of services and intervention, if any, necessary to protect the newborn’s health and safety, including a referral to the county welfare department for child welfare services.

(3) Gather data for information and planning purposes.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 1995, Ch. 415, Sec. 8. Effective January 1, 1996.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&sectionNum=123605.
Text hash
sha256 503b5ae714f3109191c48ac7249735a299ad2dec1fadf7496463363a2d32d8a3
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.