A new study published in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine
finds that babies born addicted to drugs because of their mother's addiction to opioids may be weaned more comfortably if the mother gets a new treatment during pregnancy. The babies would then stay in the hospital for less time and their treatment would cost less money.
Dr. Peter Martin, the director of the Division of Addiction Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, discovered that buprenorphine is on par with methadone, when both drugs were given as part of opioid addiction treatment to pregnant women.
"The baby comes into the world addicted to what the mother was taking," said Martin. "And everyone who comes in touch with these unfortunate babies realizes that they are very uncomfortable and incessantly restless."
The results of the study indicated that the babies of mothers who received buprenorphine compared to methadone during pregnancy needed significantly less morphine to cope with their withdrawal symptoms experienced soon after birth.
"From this study we can say that both the mothers and the babies did equally well taking buprenorphine or methadone. However, we demonstrated a significant improvement above the standard of care in important outcomes in the babies of mothers who received buprenorphine during the pregnancy compared to those who were administered methadone," said Martin.
The study claims that the new treatment options should lower the medical and public health costs connected to neonatal treatment of opioid addicition. That cost is estimated at anywhere from $70.6 million to $112.6 million dollars each year.