There’s A Baby Born Every Hour In The U.S. Addicted To Opiates

If a baby is born to a mother addicted to opiate drugs, the child goes through drug withdrawal, a condition known as neonatal abstinence syndrome. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, the number of newborns going through this withdrawal has tripled in recent years.  That means that there’s one baby born every hour in the U.S. who is addicted to opiates like OxyContin and Vicodin.

“Although our study was not able to distinguish the exact opiate used during pregnancy, we do know that the overall use of this class of drugs grew by five fold over the last decade and this appears to correspond with much higher rates of withdrawal in… infants,” says Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., lead author of the study.

“Opiate use in our country is becoming an epidemic. Too often our health system reacts to problems; instead, we must address opiate use as a public health issue. To do this, we must limit opiate pain reliever use through healthcare provider education and statewide systems that watch for abuses, like people going to multiple doctors to get opiate prescriptions,” Patrick says.

Neonatal abstinence syndrome causes a wide array of symptoms including increased irritability, hypertonia (heightened muscle tone) tremors, feeding intolerance, seizures, and respiratory distress. In addition, babies with the syndrome are more likely to be born with a low birth weight.

“You can often stand in the hallway and know which babies are experiencing withdrawal. They are irritable, their cries are different, and they appear uncomfortable,” Patrick says.