I'm sorry that that happened to your friend. How do you know, though, that the baby died from opioid withdrawal? Studies have been done that show that NAS severity is
not correlated to a mother's methadone dose. In the 1970s, before "NAS" was a thing, babies born to heroin-addicted mothers
were relatively fine.
Opioid-taking pregnant women are
extremely stressed out, given how much they are demonized by society and made to feel like they are terrible mothers-to-be. The negative effects of stress on unborn children are
very well studied.
You know what study I would like to see? Take a collection of expectant mothers who have been in extremely stressful life situations for the past nine months, and who are generally malnourished and chronically sleep-deprived. Then, take a collection of healthy, happy mothers who have been consistently taking prescription opioids and have been told that all is fine, that their babies will be fine, that they are doing nothing wrong. Now, have all the doctors at the maternity ward told that every mother had been abusing opioids, and see how frequently NAS is diagnosed. I would bet good money that the first group of babies would be diagnosed with NAS more frequently than the second.
It is so sad. Still cant believe it.
I know only from what the parents told me. They said that the baby were showing all signs of withdrawels for the few days he lived. The drs told them it was wds that was the cause of death and the parents thought so too based on what they could see of signs and symptoms. They also got a full autopsy.
as i understand from what they told me its caused by the baby getting the drugs by the umbillicalcord. When this is cut of after labour the baby who has been influenced by opiates during moms pregnancy is going CT since he is not getting anymore from his mother. also they are often underweight and born premature. Which makes them not as strong as they could have been to fight wds (or other illnesses.) after speaking with the parents so I do believe that death from opiate use by the mother is possible but not hopefully very common. If treated properly most of them will be okay.
may I ask if you know someone who went through the same or simmilar as my friends? You write abt mothers who are demonized and I was wondering if you know this from personal experience?or are you generalize?
reason for me asking is that my friends actually experienced the total opposite. And its also in my opinion that most of the healthcareworkers here treat people with empathy and respect. There are ofcourse some exeptions.
After this tragedy happend I have been trying to be there for them. And we have been talking alot. I asked the mother spesifically how she had been treated and I was pretty surprised by her answer.
she has been on painmedication for abt 10-12 years. When pregnant her pain increased and it spread. When she told her GP abt this he had her examined. He then put her on oxycodon instant release in addition to codein. She didnt have to beg for it.
He also knew she was pregnant abt 2 months.
He used the exact same arguments that you say. That its not healthy for the child that mom is stressed out and in pain. Therefor it should be treated.
She had a planned c section. The hospitalstaff knew that she had been on opiates during prgnancy. They gave her extra followups before admition due to that. To make sure everything was okay. And she was educated in what to may expect if the baby were showing signs of wd's and so forth.
she said that they were always treating her with care and respect. Not once she felt like she was doing something wrong. So she had a good pregnancy with no stress or demonizing.
when the baby was having wd's he was also treated properly according to protocoll including morphine. The staff never showed any signs of blaming her. They knew she had a painfull condition which had to be treated.
they did what they could and also gave them followups afterwards. Both parents express that they were treated with empathy.
I always thought that people are to biased against drugusers both those who are on prescriptions and those who get it illegal. Without knowing to much abt it
I learned from this that I myself in fact actually are the one who often are biased against others that are not using. Thinking that everybody are, demonizing those who are using. Fortunately now I know there are some who dont. Lesson learned..
NAS can be life threatening, but there is next to no reason it should be. Generally opioids present in breast milk are enough and in severe situations the baby can easily be treated for NAS in the hospital?s. Generally it seems babies have trouble with this because of how we deal with it on systems levels, not something inherent to the pharmacology of opioid use/dependency.
When saying that opiate wds do not exist and in case they are not lifethreatning I just wanted to chear my personal experience with this. It should not happen but it do.
If we lived in utopia and no one did drugs there would be no wds or nas. So it has to do with pharmacology of opioids which in the end will produce wds. Some babies will be born premature and/or not strong enough to fight of complications
totally agree abt treatment on system levels. I do believe there generally are lack of competent and educated personell and hence there are undertreatment and maybe mistreatment.
there are also a lack of treatmentoptions for the mother to be. At least were I live. But I think its a worldwide problem.
CT is not an option. There should be other options availeble for the mother to safely slow taper under medical observation. Atleast they should be given that choice. And in addition they should be presented with non pharmacologual paintreatment options.
I believe that some also hide their druguse due to the way they hear some has been treated by the system when they come forward.
I saw a documentary abt this. I believe it was a dr from the usa. He and his co workers are doing serious research on how to safely help pregnant drugusers get clean during pregnancy. They were also educating other drs. They aim for an international protocoll. They already helped some women who came forward and told abt their experience and suxess.
we need more of that. Non biased and well educated healthworkers. I believe that most pregnant women wish to reduce or get clean. But it is as hard for them,if not harder, like it is for the rest of us. Espesially if they use to,treat pain. But if they want to try we need to have the help ready to give.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
