“Taking a combination of opioids (strong prescription painkillers) and psychotropic medications (widely used to treat mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression) during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of drug withdrawal in newborns, finds a study in the BMJ.
A team of US researchers based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, set out to assess the impact of in utero exposure to both psychotropic medications and opioids on number of cases and severity of neonatal drug withdrawal.
After taking account of several factors that could have affected the results (known as confounders), the absolute risk for neonatal drug withdrawal was substantially higher among women exposed to opioids and psychotropic medications than among women exposed to opioids alone.”
Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-drug-newborns-opioid-epidemic.html
Source: Medicalxpress.com – August 2, 2017
See related article on pregnancy: I Was Pregnant While Addicted to Heroin. Methadone Saved My Baby’s Life available at: https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/8/9/16119194/methadone-pregnancy-heroin-opiates
