Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, Maternal Opioid-Related Diagnoses Up

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 13, 2021 -- From 2010 to 2017, there were significant increases in the estimated rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) and maternal opioid-related diagnoses (MOD), according to a study published in the Jan. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Ashley H. Hirai, Ph.D., from the Department of Health and Human Services in Rockville, Maryland, and colleagues examined national and state variation in NAS and MOD rates in 2017 and described changes since 2010 using data from the 2010 to 2017 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project National Inpatient Sample and State Inpatient Databases.

In the national sample, there were 751,037 birth hospitalizations and 748,239 delivery hospitalizations in 2017. In the discharge record, 5,375 newborns had NAS and 6,065 women had MOD. The researchers found that the estimated NAS rate increased significantly, from 4.0 to 7.3 per 1,000 birth hospitalizations from 2010 to 2017. The estimated MOD rate also increased significantly, from 3.5 to 8.2 per 1,000 hospitalizations. NAS rates varied from 1.3 per 1,000 birth hospitalizations in Nebraska to 53.5 in West Virginia, while MOD rates ranged from 1.7 in Nebraska to 47.3 in Vermont. For all states, there were significant increases noted in NAS and MOD rates from 2010 to 2017, except for Nebraska and Vermont, which only had increases in MOD.

"Between 2010 and 2017, 24 states saw increases of 100 percent or more for both indicators," the authors write.

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Posted: January 2021