New York

Number of Opioid-Addicted Pregnant Women Quadruples: CDC

Data of twenty-eight states, including New York and New Jersey, were used in the analysis

What to Know

  • The CDC released an analysis Thursday showing that the number of pregnant woman with opioid use disorders has quadrupled from 1999 to 2014
  • This is the first-ever multi-state analysis that reveals significant increases in the 28 states with available data — including in NY and NJ
  • The CDC says the study shows “national, state, and provider efforts are needed to prevent, monitor, and treat opioid use disorder"

Pregnant woman have not escaped the heroin epidemic that has taken a hold of the county, a new report reveals.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an analysis Thursday showing that the number of pregnant woman with opioid use disorders has quadrupled from 1999 to 2014.

This is the first-ever multi-state analysis of trends that reveal significant increases in the 28 states with available data — including in New York and New Jersey.

Data on hospital deliveries in the studied states shows that the rate of opioid use among pregnant women increased from 1.5 per 1,000 women in 1999 to 6.5 per 1,000 women in 2014 — an increase of 333 percent, the CDC report says.

“National rates of opioid use disorder are increasing among reproductive-aged and pregnant women, and opioid use during pregnancy is associated with adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes,” according to the CDC.

The highest increases in opioid use among pregnant women were in Maine, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia, according to the CDC study, published online August 9 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In this first look at opioid use during pregnancy by state, Washington, D.C. had the lowest rate in 2014, at 0.7 per 1,000 women, and Vermont had the highest, at 48.6 per 1,000.

In 1999, New Jersey had a rate of 4.1 per 1,000 women with opioid use during pregnancy. The rate increased to 5.6 percent per 1,000 women in 2014.

Additionally, in New York, the rate of opioid use among pregnant increased from 1.6 per 1,000 women in 1999 to 4.9 per 1,000 women in 2014.

Differing state policies might contribute to the state-to-state variability in opioid use disorder diagnosis, according to the CDC. As of July 2018, eight states require pregnant women be tested for opioids if prenatal drug exposure if it is suspected, while 24 states and Washington, D.C. require suspected drug use to be reported.

The CDC also reports that other policies could hinder diagnosis. For example, 23 states and Washington, D.C. consider substance use during pregnancy a form of child abuse under child-welfare statutes, while three states consider drug use during pregnancy grounds for civil commitment. The CDC says this might result in women concealing substance use from their providers.

According to the CDC the revelations of the study show that “national, state, and provider efforts are needed to prevent, monitor, and treat opioid use disorder among reproductive-aged and pregnant women.”

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