There has been a dramatic increase in the number of babies born with additions to pain killers – additions they have because their mothers were on the drugs while pregnant.
USA Today reports that while there are no surveys that cover the entire US (or Canada) on this issue, here are few highlights of the increases in cases:
- In Florida, the epicenter of the illicit prescription drug trade, the number of babies with withdrawal syndrome soared from 354 in 2006 to 1,374 in 2010, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.
- Maine Medical Center in Portland treated 121 babies dependent on prescription painkillers in 2010, up from 18 in 2001, says Geri Tamborelli, nursing director at the Family Birth Center and neonatal intensive care unit.
- East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville adopted a program to treat drug-exposed babies a year ago. Of the 579 babies admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit since then, 106 needed treatment for withdrawal from oxycodone and other painkillers — up from fewer than 40 in 2008. In September, painkiller-addicted babies filled nearly half the neonatal intensive care unit’s 60 beds, the highest number ever.
- It has just exploded,” says John Buchheit, director of neonatology at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital. “Narcotic use is just rampant in our society, and our area is particularly bad. The babies are caught in the middle.”
- At St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, 40 babies born in the first nine months of this year needed special care because of painkiller exposure — a 33% increase over all of 2010, says Ken Solomon, director of neonatology at three hospitals in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.
Categories Pain Drug and Practice Abuse