One Baby per Hour Born Drug Dependent

Researchers Say It's a Growing Maternal and Child Health Problem in the U.S.

By Rita Rubin WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

April 30, 2012 -- The number of U.S. babies born dependent on drugs nearly tripled between 2000 and 2009, researchers reported today.

Drug dependence occurs when a person develops a physical dependence on a drug, leading to withdrawal symptoms if the drug is abruptly stopped. Newborns can be drug dependent, but do not have the harmful behavior typically seen with addiction. By 2009, an estimated 13,539 babies -- an average of one an hour -- were diagnosed with a drug withdrawal syndrome, which most commonly occurs because their mothers were taking opiate drugs, or narcotics, while pregnant, according to the new study.

"We were surprised by the magnitude of the increase," says researcher Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, a Robert Wood Johnson clinical scholar at the University of Michigan.

Patrick and his collaborators used national inpatient databases to find the number of women who were taking opiates when they gave birth and the number of babies born with drug dependency.

"These babies, compared to other babies, are more likely to be irritable and inconsolable," says Patrick, a neonatologist. "They'll likely be born low birth weight. Feeding issues are common."

The use of prescription opiate painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin has increased four-fold over the last decade, according to a recent report from the CDC. Patrick's study found a five-fold increase in opiate use among pregnant women.

"These medications provide superior pain control for cancer and chronic pain, but have been overprescribed, diverted, and sold illegally, creating a new opiate addiction pathway and a public health burden for maternal and child health," Marie J. Hayes, PhD, a University of Maine psychologist, and Mark Brown, MD, a Bangor, Maine, pediatrician, write in an editorial accompanying Patrick's study.

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One Baby per Hour Born Drug Dependent