Quebec Study Links Pain Control During Pregnancy With Infant Withdrawal Symptoms



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"Often, after surgery, women will receive opioids for pain control and very little is known about what happens to these women after they leave the hospital," Auger said. .

Mothers operated prior to their pregnancy were 1.6 times more likely to have a baby with SIN. After birth, symptoms may include fever, respiratory complications, weight loss and convulsions; Long-term symptoms may include mental and behavioral disorders or ophthalmologic disorders.

"If the child had a SIN at birth, it meant that he had been exposed to opioids while the woman was pregnant," said Auger. Although the researchers did not know the type of opioid nor the dosage taken by the mother, they knew if she had undergone surgery prior to her pregnancy.

According to the study, infants whose mothers had been taking opioids for longer had a higher risk of having withdrawal symptoms. "If you continue to take opioids, they will lose effectiveness and you will have to take stronger doses over time to get the same pain relief," said Auger.

The type of surgery also affected the risk of withdrawal symptoms. The study found that cardiothoracic surgery increased risk by 4.5 times, while neurosurgery and urological surgery increased the risk by three.

The association between women having multiple surgeries and the SIN was even stronger, according to the study.

Some women whose infants had withdrawal symptoms did not have surgery. "These are women who would have started taking opioids for other reasons," said Auger.

"They may have had back pain and the doctor had prescribed opioids for them, or they had received it from their friends who had it in their medicine cabinet, or they were real drug users", she speculated.

"Opioids continue to be over-prescribed," said Auger. "I think the main problem is that pain control is not a simple thing; it's complicated. Sometimes it is difficult to know how and what medication a patient needs when he is suffering and often prescriptions are given to patients who may not need as much as they have.

"Limiting postoperative opioid exposure, reducing over-prescribing and screening for opioid use in pregnant women who have already undergone surgery may help reduce the risk of opioid syndrome." neonatal abstinence, "she added.

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