Study Says More Women Take Prescription Painkillers During Pregnancy
A child touches her pregnant mother's stomach at the last stages of her pregnancy in Bordeaux April 28, 2010. A January 2010 report indicates that life expectancy and fertility of French women are among the highest in Europe. Reuters/Regis Duvignau

Prescription narcotic painkillers are commonly used during pregnancy. A new study finds that these drugs increases likelihood that baby will be born with some problems.

In the new study published on April 13 in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers studied the medical records of over 112,000 pregnant women enrolled in the Tennessee Medicaid programme from 2009 to 2011. From this number of patients, around 28 percent had access to at least one prescription painkiller.

"I was surprised by the number of women prescribed opioid pain relievers in pregnancy," said Dr Stephen Patrick, the lead study author and also a Vanderbilt University neonatologist and assistant professor of paediatrics.

These narcotic painkillers are also referred to as opioids and include drugs like oxycodone (Oxycontin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), morphine and codeine. The associated risks also increased when these Tennessee women smoked or took antidepressants while pregnant.

In recent years, narcotic painkiller abuse was on the rise in the United States, and health experts are concerned about the effects the drugs have on newborns. Previous studies have shown that there has been an increase in the percentage of pregnant women taking prescription painkillers over the last 15 years.

The authors said in the study that between 2000 and 2009, prescription for opioids has quadrupled, and the cases of babies affected with neonatal abstinence syndrome have tripled. Neonatal abstinence syndrome is a group of disorders experienced by babies born from mothers addicted to narcotics.

According to obstetrician-gynecologist from New York City Lenox Hill Hospital Dr Jennifer Wu, the article describes how dangerous it is for pregnant mums to use opioids. "With this increase in prescription painkiller use, we're seeing an effect in our newborn population. If you think about how vulnerable our newborns are, this is really frightening,” said Wu.

To contact the writer, email: wendylemeric@gmail.com

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