Are More Doctors Prescribing Painkillers to Pregnant Women?

As many studies have shown the dangers of excessive opioid use, a recent study shows that in some cases, more doctors are prescribing more of the potentially harmful painkillers to pregnant women.

Findings showed that close to 23 percent of Medicaid-enrolled pregnant women were prescribed opioids such as codeine and hydrocodone in 2007. That's 18.5 percent higher than figures in 2000.

"One in five women using opioids during pregnancy is definitely surprising," said study author Rishi J. Desai, a research fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, via The New York Times.

An earlier study even showed that over 12 percent of women with privately held insurance were prescribed strong painkillers every year between 2005 and 2011, despite certain birth defects including neural tube defects and opioid use in the first trimester.

Though only 2 percent of women reported taking pain prescriptions for longer than one week, studies showed that a wide regional range from in which such drug use occurred. For instance, findings showed that prescriptions among pregnant women and painkillers were highest in the South and lowest in the Northwest and Northeast, according to The New York Times.

"The regional variation really concerned me the most," said a professor of pain medicine at Stanford University tells The New York Times. "It's hard to imagine that pregnant women in the South have all that much more pain than pregnant women in the Northeast."

As the exact complications related to narcotic use during pregnancy are relatively unknown, this has unfortunately, not stopped doctors from prescribing them.

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.