These numbers are pretty shocking: New findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have shown that almost a third of women, ages 15 to 55, have filled a prescription for an opioid each year from 2008 to 2012 – most commonly oxycodone, hydrocodone and codeine.
The C.D.C. analyzed health insurance claims from both private insurers and Medicaid. They found that for women with private insurance the number was 28 percent, and for those on Medicaid it was 39 percent. Opioids can mean a major risk for birth defects in a child if a woman should get pregnant while taking them, so these figures are concerning for experts.
“These are dangerous drugs that are addictive, and we are substantially overusing them,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C. said, according to The New York Times. He called the results “astonishing.”
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It was not clear from the analysis which, if any, of the prescribed drugs were being abused. Addiction is a major problem in the United States, and deaths from opioid overdoses have more than tripled since the late 1990s, with rates for women rising even faster. In places where the epidemic has been most deadly, newborns have also been affected. In Scioto County in southeast Ohio, for example, about one in 10 babies are born addicted.
With more than 16,000 deaths a year, opioids are the single largest cause of overdose fatalities in the nation, the Times reports. The prevalence of painkiller prescriptions for woman who are actually pregnant is startling, too. A 2014 study found that almost a quarter of pregnant women on Medicaid in 2007 had filled an opioid prescription.
It isn’t clear why so many prescriptions are being given out and how much of this is due to lax protocols, but it’s disturbing. If women are trying to get pregnant or think they might be, the risk of birth defects to a baby’s brain and spine, congenital heart defects and problems with the baby’s abdominal wall are a real concern while taking painkillers.
[Photo from Flickr user Cerpin Taxt]