Infants Born Addicted to Opiates Tripled in Past Decade
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The number of babies born dependent on prescription painkillers like Oxycontin tripled in the last decade along with higher costs to treat their withdrawal symptoms, research showed.
The surge in newborns with withdrawal symptoms from 2000 to 2009 was accompanied by a five-fold increase in the number of mothers using the opiate drugs during pregnancy, according to a study today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The average hospital bill to treat the babies jumped 35 percent to $53,400 in the same period, the research found.