Impact of psychiatric medication co-exposure on neonatal abstinence syndrome severity

The rate of pregnant women with opioid use disorder (OUD) continues to rise nationally (Smith and Lipari, 2017). The standard of care for pregnant women with opioid use disorders (OUD) is to receive pharmacotherapy with either methadone or buprenorphine (Saia et al., 2016). Infants exposed in-utero to opioids are at risk of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), otherwise known as Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS), an opioid withdrawal syndrome characterized by alterations in the central nervous, gastrointestinal, and respiratory systems after the cessation of the chronic in-utero exposure (Finnegan and Kaltenbach, 1992).

Source: Drug and Alcohol Dependence - September 1, 2018 Category: Addiction Authors: Elisha M. Wachman, A. Hutchinson Warden, Zoe Thomas, Jo Ann Thomas-Lewis, Hira Shrestha, F.N.U. Nikita, Daniel Shaw, Kelley Saia, Davida M. Schiff Tags: Full length article Source Type: research