MPH’s Cooper finds male infants at increased risk for NAS
Male infants are more likely at birth than their female counterparts to be diagnosed with drug withdrawal symptoms, also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), and to require treatment, according to a new Vanderbilt study published in Hospital Pediatrics. The retrospective cohort study used vital statistics and prescription, outpatient and inpatient data for mothers and infants enrolled in the Tennessee Medicaid program between 2009 and 2011. Of the 102,695 mother-infant pairs enrolled, 484 male subjects and 443 female infants were diagnosed with NAS.
“As pediatricians, we know that not every newborn exposed to opioids develops NAS, but we don’t know why. In our analysis of a large population of opioid-exposed infants, we found that male infants were more likely to be diagnosed with NAS than female infants,” said senior author Stephen Patrick, M.D., MPH, M.S., assistant professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy in the Division of Neonatology at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Other Vanderbilt researchers involved in the study: M. Katherine Charles, M.D., MSPH; William Cooper, M.D., MPH; Lauren Jansson, M.D.; Judith Dudley; and James Slaughter, D.Ph.