Initiative Reaches Out To Pregnant Women Addicted To Opioids To Try To Keep Children Out Of Foster Care
Women who are on the path to recovery were having their babies taken away from them, sometimes as early as right from the hospital. That was setting off a spiral, where to cope with the pain the women would turn to opioids and thus make it harder to ever get their kids back.
NPR:
Babies Born To Opioid-Addicted Moms Avoid Foster Care With The Right Support
For most of her childhood, growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, Kelly Zimmerman felt alone and anxious. She despaired when her mother was depressed or working late shifts; when her parents fought nonstop; when her friends wanted to come over, and she felt too ashamed to let them see her home's buckling floor, the lack of running water. (Chatterjee and Davis, 6/19)
In other news on the crisis —
The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Newborns In Opioid Withdrawal May Do Better On Methadone Than Morphine, Major Study Finds
A rigorous new government-funded study has found that methadone has a slight advantage over morphine, modestly reducing babies’ length of treatment and hospitalization. But the study, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, further complicates the question of how to safely and effectively treat babies going through withdrawal, called neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). (McCullough, 6/18)
Kaiser Health News:
After Opioid Overdose, Only 30 Percent Get Medicine To Treat Addiction
More than 115 Americans die every day of opioid overdose. Many more survive thanks to the antidote medication, naloxone. But a study out Monday finds that just 3 in 10 patients revived by an EMT or in an emergency room received the follow-up medication known to avoid another life-threatening event. The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, followed 17,568 patients who overdosed on opioids between 2012 and 2014 in Massachusetts. It looked at survival rates over time and whether patients received medicines that treat addiction. (Bebinger, 6/19)
