She’d been born with hepatitis C, an insidious liver disease her mother got shooting up drugs.

To keep other kids safe, Kaylee stashed a couple dozen pairs of latex gloves in her school backpack so she could clean up her own skinned knees and bloody noses. She spent a lot of time riding horses because they couldn’t judge her like people could. And she rarely spoke of her illness because “it made me feel extremely odd and different.”

Today, at 18, Kaylee realizes she’s one of thousands of people born with hep C.

A Courier Journal investigation found hepatitis C has skyrocketed among Kentucky births amid the state’s raging drug epidemic, but attempts to prevent, track and control the infectious, curable disease have fallen short. That means many kids don’t get the care they need, risking cirrhosis and liver cancer in adulthood — or even early death.

State statistics obtained through an open-records request show one in 56 Kentucky births from 2014-2016 were to moms with a history of hep C. Those births more than quadrupled between 2010 and 2016, from 260 to 1,057 a year. The latest national rate, from 2014, was one in 308.

It’s difficult to know how many Kentucky kids go on to develop the disease because state records show most don’t get the necessary testing when they grow out of their moms’ immunity as toddlers. Experts say as many as 46,000 U.S. children are living with hep C, and research suggests Kentucky fares much worse than other states because drug use among young women is so widespread.

One federal study showed this disease many associate with baby boomers rose 213 percent in four years among Kentucky women of childbearing age, from 275 to 862 per 100,000 women. That’s nearly 10 times the national rise of 22 percent, from 139 to 169 per 100,000 women.

“We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of cases of children exposed to hep C. An explosion,” said Dr. Kristina Bryant, a pediatric infectious disease specialist affiliated with Norton Children’s Hospital. The true scope of the problem is even bigger; more than half of people with hep C don’t know they have it.