Massachusetts commission cites progress in treating opioid-exposed newborns
Photo | Grant Welker
UMass Memorial Medical Center's Memorial Campus in Worcester
The rate of newborns exposed to opioids in Massachusetts has soared in recent years, along with an epidemic killing as much as 2,000 people in the state annually.
While prenatal exposure to opioids due to the mother's use has become a costly part of addressing the opioid epidemic, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission said in a report Monday a program it launched in 2016 has been effective in reducing hospital stays for infants and the need for pharmacologic therapy.
The commission launched a $3-million intervention program including a range of measures to improve care for newborns affected by drug exposure or withdrawal. Hospitals focused on non-pharmacologic therapy, which avoids the use of medication, through an emphasis on breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact and sustained maternal presence with the infant. A more standardized assessment of infant withdrawals has optimized cases when therapy using medication was necessary.
The program has shown so far to be working, the commission said, citing a 53% reduction in median hospital stay length for infants, from 17 days to eight. The number of infants requiring care in a neonatal intensive care unit fell by 23%.
UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester was among six hospitals across the state to participate in the program.
Data shows such a strong response was needed.
From 2010 to 2016, the rate of diagnoses of infants with substance exposure or neonatal abstinence syndrome, or withdrawals, roughly doubled. The number of newborns in either of those categories rose close to 2,000 across the state in 2016, according to the Health Policy Commission.
Across Central Massachusetts, the rate of newborns exposed to opioids before birth or withdrawing after birth was 29 per 1,000 births, according to the commission. Heywood Hospital in Gardner had the sixth highest such rate in the state at more than 50 such births per 1,000.
Caring for such infants can be complex and costly, the commission said. In 2012, the national average inpatient stay after birth for infants diagnosed with neonatal withdrawal was roughly 17 days with a median cost of $66,700, the commission said.
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