Drugs and Pregnancy

The number of newborns treated for drug withdrawal is on the rise. Each year, health experts say thousands of babies are born addicted to drugs. It happens when the mother uses drugs during pregnancy.

Dr. William Liu, a neonatologist with Lee Memorial Health System, says newborns showing signs of drug addiction are taken to the NICU after delivery. “There are more and more babies that we are seeing with drug withdrawal. As we relate to the mother we emphasize being nonjudgmental towards the family. There are many, many reasons that may lead to drug dependency.”

Dr. Liu says the focus is to educate women on the dangers of using drugs before they become pregnant. “The best advice is don’t use opiates if you don’t have to.” He says that includes prescription opiates for chronic pain. “That class of medication is very dangerous and there’s a very high risk of dependency.”

He says if a woman is dependent on opiates and becomes pregnant it’s not recommended that she stop taking the drug. “The reason for that is there’s a higher risk for fetal compromise. The fetus might withdrawal in uterus or there may be preterm delivery or even fetal death.”

He says those who are opiate dependent will have a difficult time coming off the drug without a detox program, something pregnant women can’t do until after the baby is born. Another alternative is the methadone program.

“The methadone program is really to allow the mother to have a controlled use of the opiate because she’s already addicted to the opiate” says Dr. Liu. “It’s really to keep her from drug seeking behavior and more high risk behavior. So, it mitigates her risk but unfortunately the collateral damage is that the fetus is exposed during the entire pregnancy to opiates.”

He says babies born from mothers who are involved in the methadone program are still at an 85 percent risk of being born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. Once born, the baby will be evaluated, and if necessary, treated for drug withdrawal.


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Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.

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