Home Family Practice Twelve Percent of Women Fill Opioid Rx After Vaginal Delivery

Twelve Percent of Women Fill Opioid Rx After Vaginal Delivery

28.2 percent of those who filled prescription within five days of delivery had pain-inducing condition

FRIDAY, Feb. 9, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Twelve percent of women fill an outpatient opioid prescription within five days of vaginal delivery, according to a study published in the March issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Marian Jarlenski, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study involving 164,720 Medicaid-enrolled women who delivered a liveborn neonate vaginally from 2008 to 2013. The authors examined the prevalence of filled opioid prescriptions after delivery and the correlation between patient characteristics and odds of a filled opioid prescription.

The researchers found that 12 percent of women filled an outpatient opioid prescription five days or less after vaginal delivery; 14 percent of these women filled a second opioid prescription at six to 60 days after delivery (1.6 percent of total). Of the women who filled a prescription within five days of delivery, 28.2 percent had one or more pain-inducing conditions. Tobacco use and a mental health condition were predictors of filled opioid prescriptions with no observed pain-inducing condition at delivery (adjusted odds ratios, 1.3 and 1.3). Having a diagnosis of substance use disorder other than opioid use disorder correlated with having a second opioid prescription six to 60 days after delivery (adjusted odds ratio, 1.4).

“National opioid-prescribing recommendations for common obstetrics procedures such as vaginal delivery are warranted,” the authors write.

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