The number of babies born addicted to opiates tripled between 2000 and 2009, a study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows.
Researchers said the increase in babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), exhibited by seizures, breathing problems, low birthweight, irritability, muscle cramping, tremors, feeding problems, vomiting and watery stools, was due in part to prescription drug abuse by mothers.
Roughly 3.4 out of every 1,000 infants born - or 13,539 infants per year - were born with NAS in 2009. This amounted to one drug-addicted baby born every hour, lead author Stephen Patrick said. According to the report, pregnant women testing positive for legal or illegal opiates increased fivefold in the same period.
"The prevalence of drug use among pregnant women hasn't changed since the early 2000s, but the types of drugs that women are using" are changing, Andreea Creanga, a researcher with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said.
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