Opioid usage during pregnancy could negatively affect the baby and the child. As a result, specialized public health initiatives have been used to lower opioid use among women of childbearing age. Still, there hasn’t been enough study to characterize the Americans who take opioids during pregnancy fully. This gap is filled by the first comprehensive, multi-regional study of pregnant women that describes opioid use epidemiology, such as these patients’ medical and demographic features.
Around 2.8% of pregnancies are exposed to opioid use
University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) associate professor Ruby Nguyen led the study, which assessed Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program data from around 21,905 pregnant women in the country.
The study found that around 2.8% of pregnancies are exposed to opioids. Surprisingly, the prevalence of opioid use during pregnancy was high among non-Hispanic white women and people with a history of substance abuse and depression. The majority of opioid use during pregnancy was from prescription drugs.
Study findings could help minimize future cases of opioid consumption
Nguyen said that past research has not accurately characterized Americans who take opioids while pregnant, which has restricted the effectiveness of previous public health initiatives. However, he added that the research findings could be helpful in future initiatives to decrease opioid consumption during pregnancy and minimize the detrimental effects of fetal susceptibility to opioids because it used the first countrywide sample of expectant individuals to discuss their opioid usage.
The ECHO initiative is a nationwide network of pediatric cohort research studies throughout the United States to determine the impact of early life exposure on many significant facets of child health. For example, Nguyen said the number of pregnancies in the program enabled them to study opioid use, which could have been challenging in smaller studies due to the fairly minimal exposure in the general population.
According to Nguyen, most of the opioids are from prescriptions, and therefore there is a need for policies to minimize opioid availability and initiatives focused on addressing the use of drugs to manage pain.
