Buprenorphine compared with methadone in opioid-dependent pregnant women: How does it affect neonatal abstinence syndrome?

Background: The growing opioid epidemic in the United States has led to increasingly high rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Preliminary studies have shown that buprenorphine maintenance treatment (BMT) may lead to better outcomes for infants than methadone maintenance treatment (MMT).

Objectives: The authors gathered recent evidence to answer the following PICO (population, intervention, comparison, and outcome) question: In opioid-dependent pregnant women, how does buprenorphine compared with methadone administration affect NAS?

Data Sources: A literature search was completed in PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science databases and limited to the past 5 years.