Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome
Our research focuses on an observational study conducted between 2002-2009 of women that received buprenorphine and methadone opioid therapy treatments during their pregnancy at Wishard Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. The data follows the journey of 79 pregnant women that received prenatal care at the outpatient substance abuse clinic and their babies who experienced in utero drug exposure secondary to illicit substance abuse. Exposure to drugs for developing pediatric patients can influence mortality, morbidity, and advance to negative impacts among physical, mental, and behavioral outcomes. The principle of this data consisted of a mixture of qualitative and quantitative values regarding the newborns including the type of delivery, gestation, birthweight, maternal admission drug screen, newborn urine and meconium drug screens, Apgar testing scores at 1 and 5 minutes following birth, newborn length of stay and treatment for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. The children within this study are now between the ages of 8 and 15 and were recommended to receive follow up visits at Eskenazi Health. Our mission is to retrospectively assess and evaluate the long-term consequences of the infants who were exposed to buprenorphine and methadone through medical issues, resource utilization, and routine well visits in the first 3-5 years of the newborn's life.
Supervisor: Dr. Jo Ann E. Matory, MDDepartment: Pediatrics