Thousands of Babies Exposed to Opioids in the Womb

Thousands of Babies Exposed to Opioids in the Womb

Each year, thousands of babies are exposed to opioids in the womb. More than half of these babies are born with withdrawal symptoms severe enough to warrant opioid replacement treatment in the nursery. This treatment often requires long hospital stays, which can compromise bonding between mothers and their babies.

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have now tested a semi-synthetic opioid that may hold the potential in treating these babies. This new development could possibly save hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare costs each year.

The researchers discovered that using buprenorphine in a dozen addicted babies was both safe and successful, and ultimately reduced treatment days by 40 percent. This is compared to the use of morphine treatment in 12 other babies. The difference was 23 days of treatment as opposed to 38 days of treatment.

"Given further study, such a beneficial drug could provide a new standard of treatment in a field where a well-defined therapeutic approach doesn’t exist," said Walter Kraft, M.D., the study’s lead author and the associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Thomas Jefferson University.

"Not only do we think buprenorphine is an excellent choice to treat neonatal opiod withdrawal, but it may prove to also be cost effective. There are not good numbers to work with but we estimate up to 16,000 infants each year are at risk for the syndrome. If you assume the costs for this treatment are $2,000 a day over an average 30 days of hospitalization, annual charges for this treatment can be up to $1 billion. If we were to reduce hospital stays by just 20 percent that would save $150 million," said Kraft.

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