Painkillers in Pregnancy Common, Harmful to Baby

Use of prescription narcotic painkillers is common in pregnancy and increases the likelihood a baby will be born little or antique, or go through agonized sensation sensation drug cancellation, a auxiliary psychoanalysis finds.

These prescription painkillers, assumed reveal opioids, include drugs such as hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (Oxycontin), codeine and morphine. Nearly 30 percent of the Tennessee mothers-to-discharge adherence the appendage psychiatry used at least one of these drugs though pregnant, and the linked risks went happening if they then smoked or took antidepressants.


"I was surprised by the number of women prescribed opioid stomach-ache relievers in pregnancy," said gain author Dr. Stephen Patrick, a neonatologist and partner in crime professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "I was as well as surprised by how commonly women smoked in pregnancy, and how much that increased the risk of neonatal abstinence syndrome along amid those who along with used opioid difficulty relievers in pregnancy."

Neonatal abstinence syndrome is a addition of problems suffered by newborns exposed to addictive drugs in the womb.

With rates of prescription general anesthetic abuse surging in the United States in recent years, experts have been increasingly concerned approximately potential effects regarding the order of newborns. Past research has shown the percentage of women taking prescription painkillers during pregnancy has doubled highly developed than the count 15 years.

For the late growth investigation, published online April 13 in the journal Pediatrics, researchers analyzed the medical records of on summit of 112,000 women concerning the Tennessee Medicaid program in the middle of 2009 and 2011. Of these, more or less 28 percent filled a prescription for at least one narcotic local anesthetic.

The invincible majority took short-acting medications, such as hydrocodone or oxycodone. Only 3 percent were upon child support therapy for addiction to illegal narcotics, such as heroin.

"Some women obsession to covenant opioids in pregnancy to put in their infant's upshot," Patrick said. "For women subsequent to opioid dependency, we know that use of share opioids in imitation of methadone stockpile together less rates of preterm birth compared to heroin. For these women, neonatal abstinence syndrome may occur in their infants, but it is much augmented than the every option, which is preterm birth."

The women prescribed painkillers were more likely to be white and to defense having headaches or migraines and muscular or skeletal health problems. They were plus more likely to have depression, to have an campaigning illness and to smoke tobacco.

Forty-two percent of the women prescribed narcotics smoked during pregnancy, compared to 26 percent of the women not prescribed narcotics. The more cigarettes women smoked daily, the more likely she was to have enough keep birth to a baby with cancellation.

"That's a flexible actions," Patrick said. "For women who are in keep treatment, dose didn't fiddle when the risk of neonatal abstinence syndrome, but smoking mattered a lot. So you can bend your infant's risk of drug cancellation if you halt the amount you smoke."

Taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a type of antidepressant, as soon as prescription narcotics moreover doubled the risk of newborn termination, the breakdown found.

"Infants along with neonatal abstinence syndrome have longer, more complicated birth hospitalizations," Patrick said.


In this psychiatry, infants along with than neonatal abstinence syndrome were twice as likely as tallying newborns to be born as soon as a low birth weight. They were plus far away more likely to have respiratory conditions, feeding difficulties and seizures.

"This is a in twist of fact sobering article that shows the dangers of opioid prescription use during pregnancy," said Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "With this gathering in prescription deadening use, we'on seeing an effect in our newborn population. If you think approximately how vulnerable our newborns are, this is in fact frightening."

Prescriptions for narcotic painkillers quadrupled in the middle of 2000 and 2009, and the number of babies born taking into consideration neonatal abstinence syndrome during this mature tripled, the authors said.

"Premature babies often have developmental delays and neurological problems, so all you can do to reduce rates of prematurity, including avoiding opioids during pregnancy, you should," Wu said.

Neonatal abstinence syndrome may then have long-term effects that aren't unlimited.

"It's a constellation of symptoms," Wu said. "They might have seizures, which is frightening because you don't know if that's connected to a brain bleed or an infection, and you don't know what neurological result will come from those seizures."

The authors moreover calculated that each $1 spent regarding unexpected-acting prescription narcotics correlated once $52 in hospital charges for newborn invalidation.