Pregnant Women Addicted to Opioids When Giving Birth Increases Fourfold

The number of pregnant women addicted to opioids when they give birth increased fourfold from 1999 to 2014, according to a new government report.

For every 1,000 hospital deliveries, 6.5 were mothers who had opioid use disorder in 2014, compared with 1.5 per 1,000 in 1999, HealthDay reports.

“These findings illustrate the devastating impact of the opioid epidemic on families across the U.S., including on the very youngest,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert R. Redfield, M.D., said in a news release. “Untreated opioid use disorder during pregnancy can lead to heartbreaking results. Each case represents a mother, a child, and a family in need of continued treatment and support.”

Opioid use during pregnancy has been associated with a range of negative health outcomes for mothers and their babies, including maternal death during delivery, stillbirth, preterm birth and neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), the CDC researchers noted. Babies with NAS can experience tremors, convulsions, seizures, difficulty feeding, breathing problems, fever, diarrhea and trouble sleeping.