Supporting Postnatal Women With Opioid Use Disorder Treated With Medication Avoidance Therapy

Recent data in 28 U.S. states revealed that opioid use during pregnancy had increased by four times since 2014, going from 1.5 to 6.5 per 1,000 admissions. The use of opioids during pregnancy is dangerous to the mother and developing fetus, greatly increasing the risk for maternal death, miscarriage, and premature birth. The increase in the number of women with opioid abuse disorder (OUD) is reflected by a fivefold increase of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a withdrawal syndrome from opioids. Corresponding with U.S. trends, a community hospital in the Texas Gulf Coast region has seen an increase in pregnant women with OUD who are being treated during pregnancy with medical avoidance therapy (MAT). These women are being lost to follow up in the postpartum period, creating an increased risk for relapse and recidivism. The gap in practice is that there is no formal, comprehensive program for postpartum follow-up of women treated for OUD delivering in this facility. The purpose of this DNP project was to utilize a multidisciplinary team to design a set of program guidelines for a comprehensive postnatal follow-up program for women with OUD who were treated with MAT during pregnancy. The theoretical model is the opponent process theory of addition. These guidelines may be used by the maternal-child professionals to decrease the relapse rates of mothers and to improve the maternal-child bonding process