US babies born to opioid-addicted moms tripled in 15 years, says CDC
In a 15-year span, the number of opioid-addicted babies being born in the US increased 300%, according to the most recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC said that the true problem is likely underestimated in the findings which are based on hospital data. They point to an urgent need for public health efforts to help pregnant women deal with addiction.
The report states that the incidence of neonatal abstinence syndrome jumped from 1.5 per 1,000 in 1999 to 6 per 1,000 hospital births in 2013. The data came from 28 states with publicly available data on opioid addiction. The report huge jumps in almost every state, but Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia had the highest increases. In West Virginia, 33.4 of every 1,000 babies born went through withdrawal symptoms in 2013.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a postnatal drug withdrawal syndrome that occurs primarily among opioid-exposed infants shortly after birth. Affected babies often show symptoms that include gastrointestinal dysfunction, temperature instability, autonomic over reactivity, and central nervous system problems, like tremors, increased muscle tone, high-pitched crying, and seizures.
NAS in newborn babies is most commonly caused by opioid exposure in the womb, but it may also be caused by other substances. It can result from prescription opioid use, non-medical opioid use, or the use of drugs like methadone, intended to wean people off opioid dependency.
To date, the CDC report is one of the most comprehensive studies looking at the rise of opioid dependency in babies amid the nation’s spiraling abuse crisis. Its findings were consistent with smaller studies that have raised concern about dramatic increases in babies born with NAS. It noted that state governments play an especially important role in addressing the problem, as their use of funds passed down from the federal government pay the bulk of treatment costs. Medicaid programs administered by states were responsible for covering 80% of the US$1.5 billion charges for treatment of neonatal opioid withdrawal at US hospitals in 2012.
Earlier this year, the CDC released the Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, which recommended that clinicians take the following steps: consider prescribing non-opioid pain management, talk about how opioid use might affect pregnancy, and when prescribing, start with the lowest effective dose possible.
