The rate of babies born addicted to opioids increased by 538 percent between 2006 and 2015 in Missouri, according to a disturbing new study warning the problem is rapidly getting worse.
At least eight in every 1,000 babies born will now suffer opioid withdrawals in the state, according to a report released by the Missouri Hospital Association Tuesday. Medical experts say the situation is rapidly deteriorating, driven by the national opioid epidemic and the continued over-prescribing of pain medication to expecting mothers, reports FOX 4.
Babies born with opioid dependence are more prone to seizures, will have trouble feeding and cry excessively in their first few days.
“I think it goes back to how we’ve been prescribing opioids to adults particularly to pregnant mothers,” Dr. Krishna Dummula, a neonatologist at the University of Kansas Hospital, told FOX 4. “The threshold to treat pain has dramatically gone down over the years, which is why you’ve seen a five-fold increase in the amount of expecting mothers being on opioid medications of some sort.”
Officials in some states are moving to place greater limits on the number of opioids doctors are allowed to prescribe and a stricter system for tracking patients, in an effort to limit doctor shopping. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in Maryland is the latest to signal he will press the legislature for a bill placing limits on the number of opioid prescriptions a doctor can write.
“These are really scary numbers,” Dr. Carl Weiner, a specialist of high-risk pregnancies at the University of Kansas Health System, told KSHB. “One in seven women who have commercial insurance will get a prescription for an opioid during pregnancy.”
Health officials note the national increase in opioid abuse is also leading to a general increase in child neglect. In states hit particularly hard by the opioid crisis, social services are becoming overwhelmed by the need for child care. Officials in Ohio say that opioids are the main driver of a 19 percent spike in the number of kids removed from parental custody for foster care since 2010.
A record 33,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2015. Opioid deaths contributed to the first drop in U.S. life expectancy since 1993 and eclipsed deaths from motor vehicle accidents in 2015. The substance accounts for roughly 63 percent of drug fatalities, which claimed 52,404 lives in the U.S. in 2015.
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