Opioid Use Ascends Among Pregnant Population

Pregnant women appear to be taking opioid prescription painkillers more and more frequently, despite concerns that certain drugs may hurt the baby, according to a recent study.

The study, published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, showed that over the last several years, the proportion of pregnant women who have filled a prescription for an opioid painkiller during pregnancy has increased significantly overall in the United States.

According to the study, which followed more than 1.1 million women who were pregnant sometime between 2000 and 2007, one in five women -- 21.6 percent -- filled a prescription for an opioid based pain killer. Researchers found that in 2000, only about 18.5 percent of pregnant women filled a prescription for pain-relief drugs, but by 2007, 22.8 percent of pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid were filling prescriptions opioids.

Regional data varied too, where some states, particularly the Northeast, showed low prescription rates among pregnant women; while southern states boasted much higher rates, where states like Idaho had about 40 percent of their pregnant women using prescription pain killers. The data gathered was from the Medicaid Analythical Extract.

This is concerning data to some experts, who explain that little is known about the adverse effects opioid painkillers could possibly have on a developing child. Over-the-counter pain killers, such as Tylenol -- which contains acetaminophen -- were once thought to be harmless to a developing fetus, but recent research has revealed that taking Tylenol may be associated with an increased chance of a child developing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

In the case of opioids, which are potentially harmful even to adults, the there is even greater worry about adverse effects.

One adverse effect that is known is post-birth addiction. A recent New York Times article even raised this point, citing a 2013 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that found that between 200 and 2009, a there was a significant rise in infants born suffering from postnatal drug withdrawal syndrome "primarily caused by maternal opiate use."

The fact that this rise was seen over the same years that the country saw an overall rise in opiate use may be no small coincidence.

The most recent study was published in Obstetrics and Gynecology on April 4.