Use of Practices to Reduce of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death among Caregivers of Opioid Exposed Newborns.

Objectives: Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) occurs disproportionately among opioid exposed newborns (OENs) compared to those unexposed. The extent that primary caregivers of OENs adhere to SUID-reducing infant care practices is unknown. We examined rates of SUID-reducing practices (smoking cessation, breastfeeding, and safe sleep [supine sleep, room-sharing not bed-sharing, nonuse of soft bedding or objects]) in a pilot sample of caregivers of OENs.

Using ICD Codes Alone May Misclassify Overdoses Among Perinatal People.

Introduction: As perinatal drug overdoses continue to rise, reliable approaches are needed to monitor overdose trends during pregnancy and postpartum. This analysis aimed to determine the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of ICD-9/10-CM codes for drug overdose events among people in the MATernaL and Infant clinical NetworK (MAT-LINK) with medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) during pregnancy.

Methods: People included in this analysis had electronic health record (EHR) documentation of MOUD and a known pregnancy outcome from January 1, 2014 through August 31, 2021.

The role of genetics in neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) after in-utero exposure to opioids remains a significant public health concern. NAS is a highly variable condition in which presentation and severity cannot be explained by clinical factors alone. Research in human subjects has identified both genetic and epigenetic associations with prenatal opioid exposure and NAS severity, including single nucleotide polymorphisms, DNA methylation differences, and gene expression modifications.

The acoustic properties, syllable structure, and syllable sequences of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during neonatal opioid withdrawal in FVB/N mouse substrains.

Concomitant with the opioid epidemic, there has been a rise in pregnant women diagnosed with opioid use disorder and cases of infants born with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS). NOWS refers to signs and symptoms following cessation of prenatal opioid exposure that comprise neurological, gastrointestinal, and autonomic system dysfunction. A critical indicator of NOWS severity is excessive, high-pitched crying.